Italian PM opens Milan fashion week

Milan's womenswear fashion week kicked off here in the Italian fashion capital on Wednesday with Matteo Renzi becoming the first Italian prime minister to inaugurate the event.

The six-day fashion week running until Monday will host 73 runway shows and a total of 184 collections for the fall-winter season of 2016-2017.

Established brands such as Giorgio Armani, Gucci and Salvatore Ferragamo will be flanked by several labels on the runway for the first time, including Atsushi Nakashima, Diesel Black Gold, Lucio Vanotti and Piccione Piccione.

"It is strange that I am the first prime minister to open the fashion week," Renzi said at the event's inaugural lunch.

"The important thing is that I am not the last. It should become a tradition," he added.

Turnover at the top 15 fashion groups in the country increased by 30.8 percent, or from 21.3 billion euros (23.5 billion U.S. dollars) to 27.8 billion euros between 2010 and the first nine months of 2015, according to research by Italian bank Mediobanca.

Italy's leading economic newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore said that in 2015 the revenues of the Italian fashion industry, which counts around 60,000 companies, grew by 1.4 percent to exceed 62 billion euros, with exports setting a new record of 47.4 billion euros.

The Italian fashion industry, including textile, clothing, leather, footwear and leather and fur as a whole, represents 41 percent of the European fashion industry, against Germany's 11 percent and France's 8 percent.

After a slowdown was registered in the last quarter of 2015, revenues are expected to increase by 2.5 percent in the first half of 2016. (1 euro = 1.10 U.S. dollars) Endit