Interview with Beppe Angiolini - Sugar Arezzo . Illustration by Anna Higgie
Heading up the Italian Chamber of Buyers for his third term, is the owner and heart and soul of a trend-setting multi-brand company. To all those from Arezzo, Tuscany, Beppe Angiolini is Beppe di Sugar. To fashion and designers, he is a hands-on authoritative voice following the evolution of tastes and new challenges of Italian-made goods.
Even the most successful brands have to face the critical opinion of the retailer. How important is it to keep this dialogue alive?
By using single-brand stores, the most structured brands have developed a direct relationship with the end consumer and, in turn, with the market. However, I think that for a company to keep the dialogue with the multi-brand channel alive, it is still important to have a broader and more overall vision of the trends and buyer behaviour and especially to make indirect and constant comparisons with other brands.
What is it about a well-made garment that strikes you?
The idea of the style, the creativity; I am especially struck if it contains innovative elements. Sometimes even just a simple detail when it manages to give a special flavour to the whole garment.
A successful multi-brand cannot detach from its role of cultural reference and communication. What strategies have you put in place to achieve this goal?
Culture and, more specifically, art have always been important tools for our communication and, now more than ever, they are critical for us to uphold our high level and to be cutting-edge.Fashion is a visual language; you need to know how to convey the product using suggestions, ideas and multi-disciplinary influences also involving music, cinema, writing, photography, graphics and generally all art forms. This is why each season, we identify specific themes of cultural inspiration and develop them to characterise visible and tangible aspects of our business: from our window installations and interior visuals to our advertising and web marketing.
Is it better to be at the forefront of research or pragmatically coincide with the Zeitgeist?
Given the speed at which information spreads today, we cannot afford to be exclusively one or the other: being cutting-edge is an essential requisite for being contemporary. The basic elements are research and clarity.
What would you like to see in the future of fashion, and Italian fashion?
Fashion is a very important area of excellence and heritage for Italy. We just need to create a system, join forces, constantly update and put and hearts into it, perhaps a touch of glamout too. Enthusiasm, emotion and courage to experiment: fashion is also a cultural industry, our added value also lies in these intangible elements, which are difficult to measure but are still sensed by the consumer. And to convey emotions, they must be experienced firsthand!