Feature: Fashion SMEs strengthen efforts to get bigger slice of global market

As the women's wear fashion week comes to an end here, many small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) have pledged to strengthen systemic efforts to get a bigger slice of the global market.

With around 60,000 companies and a turnover that exceeded 62 billion euros (67 billion U.S. dollars) last year, 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.

Turnover at the top 15 established fashion groups in the country increased by 30.8 percent, or from 21.3 billion euros to 27.8 billion euros between 2010 and the first nine months of 2015, according to a research cited by the local press.

However, most of the brands in the Italian fashion industry are smaller ones, with revenues of a few millions euros that, despite being able to express creativity and innovation, lack the right "format" to stand out among giants.

Many of these small and medium-sized companies take part in the Milan fashion weeks in an indirect way, as they are manufacturers for top brands. But they do not have the resources to invest hundreds of millions every year on stores and communication to increase their popularity among consumers.

For this reason, many of them have started to strengthen systemic efforts to get by on global markets and ensure considerable sales in the shopping malls of those countries where the main sales channel is a growingly demanding organized distribution, such as China.

At a press conference recently held in Milan, the IFF group (International Fine Fashion), made up of partners from China and Singapore, said it made agreements with more than 100 Italian fashion and clothing brands that do not have a presence or distribution in China to be represented in the group's nine fashion centers in principal cities of China.

The centers function as direct-sales locations to exhibit the Italian products. The first one will open in Shanghai, inside the Golden Eagle Shopping Mall.

"We call this new trend of the Italian market as the 'no brands,' that is to say brands which do not see huge investments on their image and advertising as a fundamental part of their policy, though they already are successful companies," Enrico Gardumi, partner at Retaily, the consulting firm that advises on the project, said.

"We think that so far the Chinese fashion market has especially been dominated by famous brands, but is now becoming more and more interested in companies which offer high quality products but with a right pricing," he said.

In his view, there is a large market space and potential clientele for 'no brands.'

This is a very positive trend for "Made in Italy," he highlighted, because there are thousands of small companies -- both newly created brands and those with years of history -- which could have a possibility to grow despite the typical problems related to their structure in a difficult financial-economic context.

Claudio Orciani, a chemical technician, was studying to become a geologist when at the age of 23 he manufactured his first belt as he could not find one that he liked. Since then, he has dedicated his life to fashion.

"In the past I also tried to enter the Chinese market by myself, but I realized that it was too much a complex market so that I decided to go the IFF way," he said.

The world of fashion has significantly changed in recent decades, Orciani added.

"More than 60 years ago, a few brands saw huge development, helped by thousands of small companies which produced for them. But those brands have now become standardized -- they make all the same products. I see a different future for fashion, where the protagonists will be smaller companies," he said. Endit