Prada Scandal Proves the Power of India's Troll Army
The saga underscores how much power the South Asian giant's digital tribe holds, where online outrage regularly influences public debate — especially when citizens perceive their heritage is under attack. International firms eyeing one of the world's fastest-growing markets should weigh the risks of these cultural missteps.
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Camera della Moda President Gets Vocal on Made in Italy Ethics, Unveils 2025 Sustainable Fashion Awards
MILAN – Carlo Capasa is pushing back on the narrative that Made in Italy lacks ethics. The president of Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana got vocal on Wednesday defending the country's high-end fashion supply chain against ongoing claims describing it as failing to fulfill the principles of quality, work ethics and sustainability that the sector has long prided itself on. More from WWD Giorgio Armani Has Busy Plans for Its 50th Anniversary Celebrations in September EXCLUSIVE: Knwls Joins Milan Fashion Week Schedule EY Report Says Italy's GDP Could Shrink 1.4 Percent If U.S. Tariffs Hit 30 Percent Such allegations that have swirled in media reports and on social media follow recent cases of alleged workers' exploitation, abuse and sweatshop schemes in the Italian fashion supply chain. The most recent links Loro Piana to sweatshop subcontractors that the brand failed to properly audit and follows earlier similar incidents for Dior, Giorgio Armani, Valentino and Alviero Martini. All brands have been put under judicial administration, with the former two brands' probes fully resolved and the judicial administration procedures lifted. 'The message trickling down is wrong and dangerous. It conveys the idea that fashion equals labor exploitation and luxury is unethical,' Capasa said at the end of a press conference here to unveil the 2025 edition of the CNMI Sustainable Fashion Awards to be held in September. 'As much as it shouldn't exist entirely, the illegal supply chain is confined to a small portion,' he said, noting how according to reports from the National Institute for Statistics, or ISTAT, the sector allegedly employs illegally about 30,000 workers, compared to a total workforce of 600,000 people across its industrial operations. The tally, Capasa said, is far below other industries. 'According to our estimates, irregular suppliers contribute to just 2 to 3 percent of the high-end fashion production in the country,' he added. 'Brands are an injured party in these incidents. Compliant brands and supply chain players are negatively impacted by this,' he offered. 'How can it be in a brand's economical interest if it covers only 2 to 3 percent of production,' he continued. 'So who does have the best interest to portray this phenomenon as widespread?' Capasa questioned rhetorically. He suggested that bad publicity fueled by competitors — which he didn't name — has been ramping up as of late, aimed at denting Made in Italy's global recognition. The executive also refuted the assumption that discrepancy between manufacturing costs and related retail prices is proof of work abuse practices, as widely suggested in reports about the Loro Piana case, said to sell cashmere jackets with a price tag of 3,000 euros, which, through its subcontractors, would allegedly actually cost only 100 euros. As reported, the luxury label has denied this claim. 'It's a strategy to hit Made in Italy as the first global producer of high-end and luxury fashion,' Capasa opined. As reported, Camera Della Moda has not been taking these issues lightly. The fashion governing body is among signatories of the memorandum of understanding issued last May to tackle worker exploitation, undeclared work, tax evasion, and unfair contractual practices in the fashion supply chain. Promoted alongside the Milan Prefecture, Confindustria Moda and Confindustria Accessori Moda, among other entities, the non-legally binding memorandum entails an action plan to tackle those issues. Its scope is currently limited to the Lombardy region, which observers have described as one of its weaknesses. To this end, in a separate fashion roundtable held on Tuesday at the Ministry of Enterprises and Made in Italy, the same fashion associations and trade unions addressed the issue, urging the government to define a country-wide mandatory protocol to ensure the sector complies with fair work standards. 'Regular employment, traceability, and compliance must become systemic standards for the sector in order to safeguard our most valuable brand: Made in Italy,' said Confindustria Moda president Luca Sburlati. 'A unified national auditing protocol is not only desirable but also necessary and urgent. We may not fully realize it, but we are facing attacks even from abroad,' he offered. 'It is baffling that institutional players are unable to establish a mandatory nationwide system for certifying legality across the supply chain — one that ensures decent jobs and wages; compliance with the National Collective Labor Agreements signed by the most representative trade unions and employer associations; health and safety conditions, and measures to fight unfair competition. Such a system is essential to safeguard the entire manufacturing sector,' echoed unions Filctem Cgil, Femca Cisl and Uiltec Uil in a joint statement. 'The survival of the entire supply chain is at stake,' concurred Capasa on Wednesday. In keeping with its mission to support the sustainable development of Italian fashion, Camera della Moda has earmarked Sept. 27 for the 2025 edition of the CNMI Sustainable Fashion Awards. Organized in collaboration with the United Nations Alliance for Sustainable Fashion, the seventh edition of the awards will be held at Teatro alla Scala during Milan Fashion Week, which runs Sept. 23 to 29. The event will hand out 10 awards including for Craft and Artisanship; Diversity, Equity and Inclusion; Circular Economy; Biodiversity and Water, as well as the Groundbreaker and Visionary awards, among other prizes. A special award — the Bicester Collection Award for Emerging Designers, promoted by the Value Retail-owned shopping destinations operator — will reward three up-and-coming designer brands. The finalists include Institution by Galib Gassanoff; Sake, the regenerative fashion project established by Colombian designer and textile researcher Ana Tafur, and Simon Cracker founded by Simone Botte and helmed alongside Filippo Biraghi since 2019. 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An independent jury chaired by Paola Deda, chairperson of the U.N. Alliance for Sustainable Fashion and director at UNECE, will assign all the awards. The jury panel includes artist Michelangelo Pistoletto; Federico Marchetti, chairman of The Sustainable Markets Initiative's Fashion Task Force; Chloe Mukai, head of the Ethical Fashion Initiative, and Xenya Scanlon, lead of the U.N. Fashion4Land Initiative and chief of communications, external relations and partnerships at the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, among others. Best of WWD Walmart Calls California Waste Dumping Lawsuit 'Unjustified' Year in Review: Sustainability's Biggest Controversies of 2021 Year in Review: Sustainability's New Strides
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L'Oréal Q2 Organic Sales Rise 2.4%, Bolstered by Professional Products, Emerging Markets and China
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8 hours ago
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Exclusive-Indian owners of three ships ask sanctions-hit Nayara Energy to release the vessels, sources say
By Nidhi Verma and Mohi Narayan NEW DELHI (Reuters) -The Indian owners of three vessels chartered to Nayara Energy have asked the Russian-backed firm to end their contracts following recent European Union sanctions on the refiner, six sources familiar with the matter said on Tuesday. India-based Seven Islands Shipping Ltd and Great Eastern Shipping Co (GESCO) have asked Nayara to release the three clean products tankers, citing concerns over the sanctions, five of the sources said. The medium-range vessels are the Bourbon and Courage, owned and managed by Seven Islands, and GESCO's tanker Jag Pooja, sources said. The sources declined to be named as they were not authorised to speak to the media. Mumbai-based Nayara, Seven Islands and GESCO did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Lack of access to ships is hampering efforts by the Indian refiner to sell its refined-fuel stocks, which are building up. The EU sanctions package unveiled on July 18 against Russia and its energy sector have forced Nayara to reduce operations at its 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) refinery due to storage constraints, Reuters reported earlier on Tuesday. Privately held Nayara, which runs India's third-biggest refinery at the port of Vadinar in the western state of Gujarat, controls nearly 8% of the country's total refining capacity of about 5.2 million bpd. Nayara, majority-owned by Russian entities including oil major Rosneft, exports refined products and also supplies them domestically. Nayara operates more than 6,000 fuel stations.
