Today our group said an early morning goodbye to Verona, and boarded the return bus to Milan. Interestingly, we were apparently riding in the tour bus of a famous soccer team from Verona. Just driving down the road we turned a lot heads and drew a good amount of cheers, and we even got a few thumbs down. It was pretty cool though. We just smiled and waved and kept on our way.
On our way to Milan, we made three stops at various companies that we toured and received lessons from in the supply chain. We also stopped for a group lunch at an extremely nice restaurant on the bank of a pond, with some very good tiramisu. The first site visit was at the logistics center Groupo Sinergia. Once we arrived, we learned that the factory was essentially a center that organized and facilitated the exchange of fashion products between consumers and various fashion companies across Italy. They compared their function in the supply chain as a company similar to Amazon, in that they make it possible for buyers to come into contact with distributors online. We learned that the online shopping industry in Italy is much smaller than in other countries due to the Italian culture promoting the enjoyment of spending a day shopping as an enjoyable event. However, the logistics center has been succeeding as an online service thanks to its ability to allow Italians to look into a store’s inventory online and seeing everything that they have to offer. It was a very educational stop on our way back to Milan.
Next, we stopped at the Sartoria Cavour tailoring company. We saw some very nice suits, many of which were made for Ralph Lauren. We got to tour the building and see some of the suits being made. We saw the original sketching of the suits, the fabric cutting, sewing, and fine tuning processes. They make approximately 60 items per day, and they are all extremely high quality. It was another great stop, and we got to see another part of the supply chain that serves as both a producer of fine fashion items and consumer of raw materials.
Our final stop before returning to Milan was at the Mario Foroni knitwear factory, also known as MF1. It was a much sleeker looking building than the previous factories that we have visited. Our tour guide spoke very highly of MF1 and once we went in, I could see why. It was all extremely high end and all of the equipment was state-of-the-art. We saw the software that they used to transfer designs into computer models that their machines could then knit together. We also saw some of Mario’s own designers at work, and some of his collection, which was very impressive. We also learned that the company knits for both Mario’s fashion line and other luxury brands. We saw some of the knits that they made for Gucci among others. Our tour guide was right to speak so highly of Mario Foroni, the visit was very enjoyable and educational.
And now we’re back at the Hotel Sempione in Milan. We have come full circle, and I hope that we can enjoy our last few days abroad.
