Why Italian fashion firms decide to maintain their production in Italy? - Analysis of the value of Made in Italy manufacturing

Abstract

After a historical introduction of the fashion environment in Italy and a theoretical explanation of the different internationalization strategies, the thesis focuses on direct investigations of Italian fashion companies. Through direct interviews, it has been possible to understand the main reasons why companies decided to maintain their production in Italy and, on the contrary, the major difficulties they had to face. Furthermore, we try to comprehend what final consumers perceive as an added value connected to this localization decision. On the other hand, for those enterprises which decided to offshore the production, it has been possible to analyse the main advantages and disadvantages to produce abroad and why they are not able or do not want to bring back the production to Italy. The thesis concludes reporting the practical cases’ data and trying to give a theoretical explanation of the cases analysed in which the smile curve is refuted.