NJAL Announces Origin Passion & Beliefs

The likes of Bonotto, Marzotto, Rosso and Seganfreddo told me of the desire they had to revive manufacturing in Northern Italy, to ensure the region never loses its culture, traditions and techniques around its textiles, accessories and jewellery industries. The evening sparked ORIGIN, PASSION & BELIEFS (ORIGIN), an initiative which NJAL have now been developing for over a year in collaboration with Fiera Di Vicenza, the international creative event organisation responsible for VINCENZAORO, one of the world’s most prominent jewellery shows.

With further endorsement from Italy’s leading luxury fashion and jewellery houses, the Venice Art Biennale and IUAV, the country’s most renowned fashion design institution, ORIGIN aims to bring together traditional and regional manufacturing houses with young and exciting design talents from five continents, developing a concept to enhance the ‘Made in Italy’ label. 

The aim of ORIGIN is to bring together traditional and regional manufacturing houses with NJAL's innovative, emerging design talents from five continents. The collaboration provide designers with the unique opportunity to network with the fashion's most esteemed craftsmen and industry buyers. The coming together of visionary design with production houses, will plant seeds for a fashion industry of the future, encourage slow fashion and support both the craftsmen of the Veneto region and the emerging designers who attend the showcase.

The North Eastern region of Italy, the Veneto, is known for its expertise and quality of its artisanship, manufacturing and production. Once the heartland of the Venetian Republic, Veneto is today among the wealthiest, most developed and industrialised regions of Italy. Having one of the country’s richest historical, artistic, cultural, musical and culinary heritages, it is the most visited region of Italy with around 63 million tourists every year.

With over 40% of all high end and luxury manufacturing for Europe emitting from this region, fashion has always played a central role in the area, which stretches form the Alps towards the Adriatic sea. Thousands of family-run manufacturers, artisans as well as the most innovative global fashion entrepreneurs are located in the Veneto region. Furthermore, the Vicenza gold handicraft is one of the many expressions of creativity originating from this Italian town. The art of fine goldsmiths and fine jewellers is embedded in the DNA of the people of the area, boasting over 700 years of experience.

After months of preparation and anticipation, the opening teaser event is finally about to happen, with the final preparations being put in place to set in motion the ORIGIN initiative. To introduce the event to the fashion world, NJAL and its partners have devised a four day event which will take place from the 4th - 7th July 2013 and will allow a selected audience a glimpse of what is to happen at the main event in 2014.

One of the distinctive features of the Veneto region are its 'industrial clusters' which are geographically well defined areas in which enterprises specialising in the same type of product are concentrated. In reflection of this, the organising partners have factored this concept into both the main event and the teaser event with an emphasis on four key 'industrial clusters'; leather, stone, textiles and technology. NJAL has also handpicked sixteen of its most innovative emerging designers, with four designers to represent each industry 'cluster' and join NJAL on a trip to Treviso and Venice, Italy in July for the ORIGIN teaser event.

The home of the teaser event this July will be H-Farm. Based just outside of Venice, H-Farm is a venture incubator headed by the likes of Italian entrepreneurs and new retail and technology experts, Riccardo Donadon and Maurizio Rossi, whilst the main event will be held at the illustrious Fiera di Vicenza trade fair venue.

With ORIGIN and Fiera di Vicenza, NJAL are deepening the pledge to bring emerging designers and the concept of authentic luxury to the forefront of the fashion industry. ORIGIN is about bringing together contemporary fashion with embedded tradition and infusing definitive craftsmanship with visionary creativity and ultimately presenting and setting free those outcomes into the fashion world, to reshape the industry for the better.