MILAN — Italian fashion entrepreneurs have been increasingly protective of their suppliers, investing in the small- and medium-sized companies that make up the pipeline — ever so important to the Made in Italy production.
Brunello Cucinelli has taken things one step further by launching a new project that is aimed at beautifying the working spaces of the artisans in the pipeline that create the products for his namesake company.
Cucinelli has long voiced his belief in the importance of working in beautiful factories, where “seeing the sky is inspiring, not a drawback,” he has often said.
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Beautiful working spaces contribute to the dignity of work and in this vein, on Monday he revealed that he had signed an agreement with BNL BNP Paribas for the project called “Beautifying working spaces,” which will allow artisans to improve their working conditions.
As per the agreement, Cucinelli and BNL BNP Paribas will provide small- and medium-sized companies with projects, help them complete them and offer a financial support at facilitated and dedicated conditions.
The bank will collaborate with specialized contractors that will be able to evaluate the projects and supply innovative and efficient solutions.
BNL through its controlled Artigiancassa will also offer a consultancy service for access to the financing, which can also be linked to the PNNR [National Recovery and Resilience Plan] funds.
Cucinelli chief executive officer Riccardo Stefanelli said that this agreement is “in continuity with our commitment in favor of the well-being of workers,” noting that in Solomeo, where the company is headquartered, “we have always worked trying to promote the culture of the beautiful factory and this agreement is meant to extend this beauty to our pipeline.”
It is in the same vein as Cucinelli’s dedication to the protection and promotion of the artisanal work, “aware that the objects are noble and beautiful only if the locations where our exceptional artisans operate are also beautiful,” said Stefanelli.
The agreement is also in line with Cucinelli’s concept of humanistic capitalism and sustainability, meant to generate a positive social and environmental impact on the territory, and “our constant need for cultural and spiritual growth, which has always been our North Star,” he offered.
Maria Elena Gasparroni, director of the corporate banking division of BNL BNP Paribas, said the agreement expresses concretely how banks and companies can “cooperate virtuously, activating economy and finance in a sustainable way at the service of companies, the pipeline and the local communities, in this case of the Umbrian territory [the region where Solomeo is based].”
The project “targets human capital in the conviction that people are central in the work and production and their well-being is a competitive lever,” she concluded.