Today was a day full of traveling and learning. We went to a total of three site visits and it was a day full of fashion. We left Verona with high expectations but also worries that this day was going to be more exhausting than fun. The bus was amazing. We got to ride in the official bus of the Verona soccer team. Everyone was staring at us and taking pictures of the bus, we all felt famous.

Our first visit was to the Verona Fashion Consortium Logistics Center. We got an amazing lecture by the head of the company on the purpose of the company and what their goals are. They explained how they differ from popular e-commerce companies such as Amazon. For example, amazon only has a few companies in Italy so they can only serve to a few cities at a time. On the other hand, the consortium has over 50 warehouses in Italy so they can serve almost every city in Italy. After, we went to a small tailoring company that makes custom men’s suits for brand like Ralph Lauren. The company was everything I expected. A small, quaint shop that makes about 60 suits a day. One thing I noticed was that most tailors were girls. The owner of this company explained to us that this was a big challenged faced by the company. Many aspiring tailors are woman and tailor companies are struggling to find male employees. Lastly, we went to MF1 which is a knit wear company that creates knits for high end brands such as Gucci and Givenchy. This site was amazing. We were all left with our mouths gaping as we stared at the high end designs. We saw exclusive Gucci knits, Future garments for the MF1 line and the whole knit history of MF1.

In all, today was amazing. I got to see the behind the scenes as to how companies become successful and the process of how high end, luxury clothing is made. This is a day that I will remember for the rest of my life.