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Home > UNITED KINGDOM > Focus On
WHEN SOMETHING USEFUL IS A WORK OF ART
Rome - (Ign) - The interior of any item of clothing hides a secret. At times this object is a real miniature work of art. The label, hidden inside an item of clothing, in addition to responding to precise laws on transparency and identification, has over the years experienced an evolution leading it to assume an ornamental value. Thinking of these rectangles of fabric as simple indications of the brand, the composition and washing instructions is extremely reductive. Labels may be produced in dozens of different types: selvedge, heat-cut, ultrasound, adhesive, punched, satin, half satin, taffeta, polyester, Bemberg, cotton. Moreover, with the new electronic looms of the latest generation, the label becomes a small "tapestry", on which any photographic or pictorial image can be reproduced.
Labels give value to Italian products with three simple words: "Made in Italy". This "trademark", above all in the sector of clothing, guarantees and identifies the quality of the item. Unfortunately even European legislation does not defend Italian products as it should. The law on the traceability of product origin, which will come into force in 2007, will not make any distinction between products made inside the countries of the European Union. This new law imposes a product "identity card" for clothes labels which guarantees the origins of the material and the place of production, but will not specify whether clothes have been made in the countries of Eastern Europe.
The Italian companies that deal with labels are thus forced to find new ways of valorising their products, to make them competitive, continuing to give added value to the item of clothing.
In Volpiano, in the province of Turin, where there the oldest and most important companies producing labels for clothes are concentrated, the ribbon manufacturer Inmetess is ready to invest in a small technological revolution. The company has in fact patented an industrial weaving system for producing labels with serial numbers. The piece of clothing thus becomes a work of art, with a unique history which certifies its quality. Special alphanumerical strings, inserted almost invisibly into the weave or warp of the fabric will incontrovertibly guarantee the originality of the piece of clothing, making it immune from counterfeiting.
An alternative approach, once more based on high technology, is that which is being adopted by a variety of companies: equipping the labels of clothing with a chip which uses a system of radio frequency identification to control the product at any time. The technology is called a RFID (Radio Frequency Identification), and makes it possible to protect the clothing to which the chip is attached from any counterfeiting and to check its position within the production chain. With this technology not only is it possible to find a product, but to update data according to the needs of the producer and retailer. The result is a label that can tell the history of a piece of clothing at every step, thus making counterfeiting impossible. This technology occupies a central role in the facilities of what is known as "Etna Valley", an industrial district near Catania specialising in ultra technology, strongly desired by the multinational St Microelectronics: another part of the country fighting for the defence of Made in Italy.
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