Diffuse entrepreneurship and the very heart of «made in Italy», for fashion and luxury goods – N. Giusti

«Made in Italy» is a worldwide label for fashion and luxury brands. It suggests top quality as well as a sense of distinction and it is closely linked to famous brand names as well as entrepreneurs like Giorgio Armani, Miuccia Prada, Gianni Versace. Nevertheless, behind the sparkling names, made in Italy hides a set of entrepreneurial forms that are at the heart of peculiar Italian savoir-faire for fashion and luxury goods and that were, indeed, at the heart of the economic development of the country. Design, production and distribution of fashion and luxury goods in Italy have solid foundations in a diffuse network of independent enterprises that ensured economic and cultural development and innovation. The free, yet coordinated, initiative of small entrepreneurs, firmly rooted in the traditional structure of the Italian society, constitute the economic and social fabric behind the success of some of the well known large groups of the high end of the fashion and luxury system. This fabric of diffuse entrepreneurship is also actually ensuring the necessary variety of initiatives and countermeasures to face the crisis of this sector and to invent new solutions against the de-manufacturing and the fierce concurrence of the developing countries.