NEW YORK — The Italian Trade Commission said here Tuesday that it will launch a new textile fair in Italy this fall, Milano Unica “Il Salone Italiano del Tessile.”
The show fuses textile trade shows Ideabiella, Idea Como, Moda In and Shirt Avenue, which had taken place in Italian cities throughout the year.
Aniello Musella, the new executive director of the ITC in the U.S., and Pier Luigi Loro Piana, president of Ideabiella who is also chief executive officer and deputy chairman of luxury goods company Loro Piana, spoke of the importance of combining the shows under one roof.
The Italian textile industry employs 660,000 people in 68,000 companies, according to Loro Piana, but all is not perfect in the industry.
“There has been unlawful trademark falsification and product dumping,” he said. “We need to safeguard the certificate of origin of a Made In Italy product.”
The show’s objective is to maintain a strong message to the international market.
“We want to become the reference point in the sector of top-level textiles,” Loro Piana said. “If we don’t change, we die.”
The trade show bows Sept. 13 in Portello-Fiero in Milan, with 600 international exhibitors and 25,000 attendees expected. Milano Unica has held events announcing the new show in Milan, Barcelona, Prague, London and Paris, and will do so again in Tokyo on July 22. The 2006 show will be held at another venue, the Milan Rho-Pero Fairgrounds.