Made In Italy Has A Big Problem, And It Is Also Our Fault

For years, Made in Italy has been described mainly as a heritage of quality, style, and craftsmanship. Today, however, this is no longer enough. Our country has not yet understood that it cannot simply boast about its mark of quality, and that it must not only carry forward a productive legacy, but also understand how to make it continuous, accessible, and relevant for those who will carry it forward.

 

The first issue is generational turnover. Without a real entry of new professional skills, Made in Italy risks remaining a very strong symbolic hallmark, but a more fragile one in production terms. No supply chain preserves itself. It needs prepared young people, technical profiles, and individuals capable of entering processes and evolving them.

Know-how can no longer be merely evoked. For too long it has been treated as an almost automatic value, inherited by tradition and destined to transmit itself. Today this is no longer the case. That heritage must be translated into clear pathways, into concrete training opportunities, into tools capable of transforming a production culture into real competence.

 

The relationship between school and business must be strengthened. If this connection remains occasional, the system continues to lose strength. What is needed instead is a stable, readable connection built over time. Training must no longer be conceived as a moment separate from business, but as an integral part of building the supply chain. In this direction also goes the CFMI Academy 2026. The project stems from the collaboration between Centro di Firenze per la Moda Italiana, UniCredit, and Pitti Immagine, with Piattaforma Sistema Formativo Moda ETS and Polimoda as Educational Partners. And this is precisely the most interesting signal: training is no longer conceived as a moment separate from business, but as an integral part of building the supply chain.

 

Investing in the new. The supply chains of Made in Italy still require manual skill, precision, and sensitivity for the product, but they also demand the ability to interpret innovation, familiarity with more complex processes, organizational vision, and new languages.

 

The most important thing to understand is that the problem of Made in Italy is also our fault. It can no longer be just a private responsibility, entrusted to individual companies or to internal territorial dynamics. It must become, and fortunately this is happening, a public issue to be openly acknowledged. And this is an important step, because it shifts the focus not only onto those who produce well, but also onto those who can teach, guide, and transfer experience and method. In other words, onto those who make continuity possible.