The volume Italian Ways proposes in its journey and its articulation through six Italian industrial districts, all the elements that render the Italian people “aesthetic”, all the reasons that explain the success of fashion and Italian design in the world, and all the strategies to strengthen and extend the Italian influence in consumption and in the daily life of other peoples.
According to Future Concept Lab analysis, the reasons for such a success are: a rediscovered relative knowledge to its own qualities and relative modalities of creative transfer to society understood as the organization of distributive and communicative events, and above all the courage to acquire a role of conceptual and cultural leadership proposing a new lifestyle and “watch the world”.

In this process Italian Ways evidences a path through history, geography, the popular and material culture, and Italian art, in order to understand the deep roots of this philosophy of life, of the genius loci that it produces in a beautiful and incessant way, some times unconscious. An understanding made possible through exploration of productive methods, the life of the industrial districts: the most vital woven fabric of Italia society, and caretakers of an excellent “know how” that comes down from the happy image of the handicraft renaissance workshops.

The first part of the book is dedicated to the “difference” between Italy and other advanced countries, where it is attempted to define an interpretative matrix that is capable of understanding the Italian genius loci but specifically its innovative “know how”.
The second part of the book describes the vocation of Future Concept Lab to read social change through the lens of consumption, of the aesthetic transformations that take place between people and products, with one particular attention on the Italian world of fashion and design, and in the regional Italian districts – Lombardia, Campania, Veneto, Marche, Puglia – that follow through aesthetic vocations.
The third and last part of the book proposes a moment of conclusive reflection dedicated to the handicraft workshops of Renaissance era like a place of aesthetic creation within Milan, as a place of aesthetic mediation, and the role that aesthetics will have within new globalization.

Italian Ways – Made in Italy: the 6 trends and their presence in the world
Publisher: Libri Scheiwiller (November 2003)
Language: English, Italian