This week, the Kering-owned brand announced the opening of The Academia Labor et Ingenium, which is aimed at passing down the label’s heritage, techniques and craft know-how — known as “savoir faire” — through training courses (pictured).
It’s the latest push from a luxury brand to establish a pipeline for young talent in craftsmanship, which includes areas such as leatherwork, draping, tailoring, pattern making, sewing and polishing.
The need is dire. At the end of 2022, 20,000 artisan-led jobs were left unfilled in France, according to estimates from Comité Colbert, a consortium of luxury brands; the organisation’s president and CEO Bénédicte Épinay said the number is likely higher. In the next three years, the Italian fashion industry will face a “critical situation in terms of resources” with 94,000 technical positions left open, according to luxury consortium Fondazione Altagamma. To boot, luxury’s rapid expansion over the past two decades has created record demand for these jobs.
To read more on how brands and makers are working to gain — and hold — the attention of the next generation of pattern makers, tailors and more, head to our #linkinbio.
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