Matching Style with Industry.

When it comes to style and industrial excellence, there are few nations that do it as well as Italy. Let’s be honest from their cars; Ferrari, Alfa Romeo and Lamborghini to their fashion houses, Gucci, Prada, D&G and many many more, it’s hard to not be interested in how they manage to get the most from their designers and then produce such high quality products to go with it. (After all, who hasn’t seen something from Italy and thought they wouldn’t pay the extra money!)

This phenomena is also true when it comes to home interiors. Did you know that nearly 80% of the soft furnishings market in Europe comes from the north of Italy alone?! Staggering.

RefinCermiche, home interior experts and an Italian company have some thoughts as to why this is the case.

Pride in style

“Italians are fussy” said one marketing representative for the firm. It’s all about making sure that the appearance that your home has, reflects how you want to be seen. In Italy, you want to be known as a beautiful Fellini film rather than a Hitchcock thriller!

What’s unknown to many is that Italian design students will be actively learning style, function and design principles from the age of 12.

“The Italian education system is very different to many other nations when it comes to selecting your field of study and how this then applies to your next 7 - 12 formative years. It’s not uncommon for many design students to be actively attending design classes around the country, whilst also participating in apprenticeship schemes in major firms so that they get a clear career ladder into the area.”

“What is also interesting is that because design requires the technical foundations as well as the graphical ones, you get many great engineers that have come from design schools, but with the principles of design firmly placed in any technical product they have then gone on to create.”

Sourcing of materials

For many Italian firms, from food to bicycles, cars to porcelain it comes down to one key area, where are they sourcing the materials from and how will this affect both the design and manufacturing excellence that they are looking for.

Whether the material is local or shipped in from another destination, the key to the secret behind Italy’s design and manufacturing success is because they are keen to understand how the raw material works for the end product.

Italians will spend hours in training understanding raw materials and how they will impact on design and overall look and finish to ensure that you get a well thought out end product.

Finally, how it’s made!

Companies like Refin Ceramiche, are no different to many other major brands such as Ferrari or even Pinarello. The pride in how the final piece looks and feels is going to come down to industry design, raw materials and then, how it’s ultimately manufactured.

Italian manufacturing has carved an industry in the high end specification machinery for a multitude of jobs and the applications in a variety of business areas.

For companies like Refin who require precise engineering to get the look and feel that the product deserves, then Italy holds the key to the manufacturing process like no other.

What it all boils down to is the level of detail that firms like Refin go to, to get the look that they want. Design, style and industry are brought together from an early age in Italy to bring you iconic brands and the small independents to the forefront of your mind. That’s how Italy just likes to do things.

* Collaborative post.