This morning was our second fashion walking tour of Milan. This time our tour focused on a company visit to Excelsior, a high-end department store that sells luxury fashion and lifestyle products. Our day was dominated, however, by a lecture given by a digital marketer for Bottega Velasca, a high-quality but average price shoemaker based in Milan. During this presentation we were able to learn about the marketing strategies of a shoe brand which is dependent on the imagery of excellence and practicality. We were able to learn about the company’s position as a direct business-to-consumer company, a business model that is becoming more and more prevalent in Italy.

With a few friends I was able to visit the store itself, and experience the imagery that was used in-store as well as online. The store was full of tradition magazines and decor, which cemented the image of style and practicality suggested by the store’s brand. It was interesting to see how this differed from the way that most Americans buy shoes, which is either to sacrifice quality for price or to buy high-end and impractical products.