Fashion Houses Running Out Of Artisans To Train More Young People

[RAMROD 117,103]

When Serge Brunschwig arrived in Rome almost five years ago to become Fendi’s chief executive, he was confronted with a conundrum: the company was struggling to find skilled workers.

The problem left the 62-year-old McKinsey alum taken aback. After all, Italy has always been known for its artisans, from the violin-makers, textile designers and painters of the Renaissance to the legends of modern fashion, craftsmanship and Italy go hand-in-hand.

“You have these extraordinary people, incredibly devoted, who are ready to go the extra mile,” Brunschwig says from his office in Fendi’s iconic Roman headquarters. But those traditions are at risk of petering out. “Where is the next generation?” he asks.

Brunschwig’s challenge is one that executives around the world would recognize. Despite the mounting recession risks as 2022 draws to a close, companies are struggling to find talented staff as the aftermath of the pandemic compounds long-term demographic trends shrinking workforces across the developed world.

In Italy, the struggle to recruit younger workers is not just an issue for Fendi, a division of the French luxury powerhouse LVMH. The small family firms that produce many of its supplies are facing the same problem and some are going out of business, raising the prospect that Italy could lose that precious know-how that has helped drive its economy for centuries.

Italian luxury companies are managing to fill only about half of the posts they advertise, according to Stefania Lazzaroni, director general of trade group Altagamma. That means the industry will be missing about 94,000 over the next four years.

Like his boss at LVMH, the billionaire Bernard Arnault, Brunschwig is a graduate of France’s prestigious Ecole Polytechnique, known for its military training and rigorous curriculum in science and engineering. He worked in Paris and Hong Kong during a career of more than 20 years developing LVMH’s top brands — including Dior and Louis Vuitton — before arriving in Rome with a mission to steer the fashion house through the end of Karl Lagerfeld’s 50-year reign as creative director.

His appointment of British designer Kim Jones has pushed up sales with a refreshed product line-up, but he’s worried about the consequences of Italy’s traditional skills fading away.

He considered whether it came down to money. But starting salaries in the industry bear comparison with other professions and can rise quickly. If you can turn a designer’s sketch into a beautiful shoe that fits, that can be produced in sizes and is well-stitched, that has immense value people will pay for, he said.

So Brunschwig decided that Fendi would have to take on a more active role in preserving and cultivating those traditions. He wanted to create an environment that would bring young people together with older craftsmen to learn their skills, so he chose the central region of Marche, where workshops have been producing shoes for over 500 years.

The problem, he discovered, was that young Italians don’t associate the luxury industry with the traditions of renaissance craftsmen, they think of hard factory conditions and low pay of more recent history.

“People see shoemaking as a job for losers,” says Beatrice Giommarini, 18, a trainee at the Fendi factory who initially had wanted to go into hairdressing.

She says watching her mother make shoes piecemeal as a child made her frightened of ending up in the same position.

“She used to work at home for many, many hours,” she says. “It was very, very stressful.”

To change those attitudes, Brunschwig reached out to the Italian school system. In his native France, trade schools are common and effective way of preparing your people for skilled jobs, with about 240,000 students across the country. In Italy, the number is around 17,000, according to Altagamma. The problem is that many Italian families see trade schools as a second-rate option for children who struggle academically, rather than a route into a well-paid trade.

Fendi is working with the trade group Altagamma and Italy’s Education Ministry to build better links between schools and the industry providing internships for students, alongside other firms like Bulgari, Salvatore Ferragamo and Gucci.

“The presence of a prestigious brand helps a lot,” says Annamaria Bernardini, principal of a school in Fermo that is participating in the program.

 

Full article:

https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/luxury/fendi-goes-back-to-school-to-save-centuries-of-italian-tradition/

[dit 46,738]

I wonder what the pay actually is  

They keep emphasizing that it is the PERCEPTION that is keeping ppl away but perhaps it is the actual pay itself.  

Almost all job market issues can be filled once you hike up the pay a tiny bit. More ppl get encouraged to work labor jobs if you give them insurance, unions and pay a competitive and livable salary tbh

[Oriane 22,778]

1 hour ago, RAMROD said:

In his native France, trade schools are common and effective way of preparing your people for skilled jobs, with about 240,000 students across the country. In Italy, the number is around 17,000, according to Altagamma. The problem is that many Italian families see trade schools as a second-rate option for children who struggle academically

Oh, in France too, people think that. I wonder why the difference in numbers is so big though 

[Creyk 18,662]

1 hour ago, dit said:

I wonder what the pay actually is  

They keep emphasizing that it is the PERCEPTION that is keeping ppl away but perhaps it is the actual pay itself.  

Almost all job market issues can be filled once you hike up the pay a tiny bit. More ppl get encouraged to work labor jobs if you give them insurance, unions and pay a competitive and livable salary tbh

You can make quite good money in trades but it's true they are seen as second rate low value jobs so people don't choose to study them, instead we educate way more psychologists and communication specialists than we can employ. But this is where it's good that soon AI will make some artistic jobs obsolete. Those people can turn to working in jobs where there is more demand for human resources, like being a shoe maker.

[Guillaume Hamon 6,992]

49 minutes ago, Oriane said:

Oh, in France too, people think that. I wonder why the difference in numbers is so big though 

I believe in France so many people got master degrees to end up with low wages that now folks just tell their kids to do what they like and try to get a decent wage at least, whatever it's manual or intellectual.

[AsleepOnTheCeiling 6,974]

"The small family firms that produce many of its supplies are facing the same problem and some are going out of business"

 

"they think of hard factory conditions and low pay of more recent history."

It sounds like they would be thinking correctly

[AsleepOnTheCeiling 6,974]

2 minutes ago, Guillaume Hamon said:

I believe in France so many people got master degrees to end up with low wages that now folks just tell their kids to do what they like and try to get a decent wage at least, whatever it's manual or intellectual.

This is starting to happen in the US too. Not so much with Gen X's children as Millennials', but generally trending upwards. 

[Guillaume Hamon 6,992]

9 minutes ago, TortureMeOnReplay said:

This is starting to happen in the US too. Not so much with Gen X's children as Millennials', but generally trending upwards. 

It gonna be needed to keep industries alive and will destroy a part of the disdain towards manual jobs so it's probably good news.

[Guillaume Hamon 6,992]

2 hours ago, dit said:

Almost all job market issues can be filled once you hike up the pay a tiny bit.

True! Speeches about folks not being hard-working anymore are BS.

They just saw their parents doing these jobs for low wages and prefer to do something less crappy if it's to get a low wage anyway.

[PunkTheFunk 125,703]

TL;DR: Luxury companies surprised that people are no longer willing to accept low wages

[YouCanSitWithUs 394]

5 hours ago, Creyk said:

 But this is where it's good that soon AI will make some artistic jobs obsolete. Those people can turn to working in jobs where there is more demand for human resources, like being a shoe maker.

  .......

 

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[Creyk 18,662]

7 hours ago, LuckyAlbum7Soon said:

 

 

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It's true. A doctor contributes more to society than an actor.

[Ladle Ghoulash 53,143]

14 hours ago, Creyk said:

You can make quite good money in trades but it's true they are seen as second rate low value jobs so people don't choose to study them, instead we educate way more psychologists and communication specialists than we can employ. But this is where it's good that soon AI will make some artistic jobs obsolete. Those people can turn to working in jobs where there is more demand for human resources, like being a shoe maker.

Babe, you don't think machines can make shoes?