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ApritiModa returns on October 24 and 25. For two days, over a hundred places of Italian production will open their doors to the public: ateliers, workshops, factories and archives that normally stay off the visitors’ routes. A chance to see fashion at the moment it is made, before the advertising campaigns and the shop windows.
The initiative, conceived by journalist Cinzia Sasso in 2017, reaches its tenth edition. It started with fourteen addresses in Milan; today it involves businesses spread across Italy, from the great maisons to companies that work for other brands or preserve little-known specializations.
Fashion is almost always discussed once the product is finished. We talk about collections, designers, brand strategies. The work needed to obtain a good shoe, a quality fabric or a well-built jacket stays more in the shadows. Yet a good part of the reputation of Made in Italy was born right there, in workshops and production departments, thanks to people who learned a craft and practice it every day.
The program allows visitors to enter very different environments. In Florence, the Antico Setificio Fiorentino preserves a tradition tied to historic looms and fine fabrics. In Venice, Tessitura Luigi Bevilacqua continues the artisanal production of velvets. In Naples, Guantificio Omega tells the story of one of the city’s manufacturing specialties. Realities far apart in size and products, united by a heritage of skills that deserves to be known.
Watching a process also helps to tell apart what you see in a product from what makes it good. In the cut of a garment, proportions and the way the fabric responds matter. In a shoe, the construction can affect the fit more than any decorative detail. These are aspects that an advertising photograph can hardly explain.
The question of generational renewal remains open. Artisan knowledge does not pass down by itself. It takes young people interested in learning, companies able to train them, and a market willing to recognize the time needed to do a job properly. Opening the workshops also means making known professions that risk losing visibility just as attention to manufacturing quality is growing.
In 2025, ApritiModa welcomed over twenty thousand visitors. A significant interest in a part of the fashion industry that rarely makes the front pages, but on which a large share of the recognized quality of Italian production depends.
Visits are free, by reservation through the official website http://www.apritimoda.it.
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Alessandro Sicuro
Brand Strategist | Photographer | Art Director | Project Manager
Alessandro Sicuro Comunication
