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Milano Fashion Institute is an interuniversity consortium for the higher education in the fashion industry founded in 2007 by three Milan universities: Bocconi University, Cattolica University and Politecnico of Milan, whose goal is the creation of a multi-disciplinary training center of excellence at an international level. These three universities have a primary role in the international university scene, drawing on consolidated experience in the research and training activities for businesses in the fashion sector in the fields of management, communication and design. The creation of the Milano Fashion Institute promotes professionals that are formed on the basis of transversality and interdisciplinary of the Universities’ competences.
Thus, Milano Fashion Institute is a unique initiative in Europe The training programme involves academics and researchers in Economics and Management disciplines from Bocconi University, in Social Sciences and Communication from the Cattolica University, and in Technology and Design from Politecnico of Milan.
Usually, programs in the fashion industry involve only one or two of these disciplines and therefore have difficulty introducing students to the huge range of issues raised by the entire design, production, creative, marketing and communication process of fashion and lifestyle products.
The didactical activity of Milano Fashion Institute, on the other hand, sets out to provide students with the specialist interdisciplinary skills they need to manage effectively the entire design, production and communication process of fashion products.
In 2011 Milan Fashion Institute starts the internationalization process ofall the post graduate Masters.
In 2012, the educational and didactic model of Milano Fashion Institute becomes a case studyand it is presented during the event "Designed Asia 2012", Hong Kong, a key international event for teachers, researchers, trend analysts and designers, organized by the Hong Kong Politecnico University School of Design.
Attending a master of MFI provides a unique cultural, personal and professional opportunity to spend a whole year in Milan, one of the major world fashion capitals.
Milano Fashion Institute is the first interuniversity institute in Italy for the higher education in the
fashion industry. Founded in 2007 by the three most important Milanese universities that already worked on the fashion industry: Bocconi University (ranked 6° Worldwide, Masters in Management, by Financial Times, 2018), Cattolica University (ranked among the first 100 Universities in the world, 2018) and Politecnico of Milan (ranked among the top 20 Universities in the world in all three areas: 17° in Engineering, 9° in Architecture and 5° in Design, by QS, 2019).
Politecnico of Milan provides education in the fashion sector through its Design Faculty, Europe's largest design school by number of students and teachers, as well as in terms of educational and research resources.
It offers Bachelors and Masters of Science in Fashion Design, with a faculty that embraces not only competences in the field of garment design, but also accessories, packaging, communication and retail.
Interdisciplinary departments draw on the services of lecturers and researchers working in the fields of science and technology, economics and management, and historical.
In 2007 Politecnico launched a joint project with the Fashion Institute of Technology of New York, involving numerous shared activities for teachers and students of both the Universities, confirming the institution's strong international orientation, which it has already consolidated through relations with leading fashion design schools around the world.
In addition to teaching, extensive research activity is performed in the fields of textiles, apparel, accessories, communication and retail, with contributions from major public institutions and private companies.
Bocconi University
From several years the Bocconi University has been building up an extensive programme of research and management training in the fashion, luxury and lifestyle industry, through an inter-disciplinary faculty in which internal academic teachers are supplemented by external personnel with professional backgrounds.
One important qualifying aspect of this work is the intensity of relations with businesses and institutions in the sector, which alongside educational activities, makes it possible to organize internships, field projects, thesis projects, testimonials, research and job placements. Taken together, these constantly feed a knowledge base without equal at Italian and international levels.
Cattolica University
Cattolica University works in the fashion industry through scientific and educational activities of its Centre for the Study of Fashion and Cultural Production (Modacult).
The Centre, which was established in 1996, has an international reputation for sociological studies addressed to fashion, which is analyzed in terms of the communication practices that take place throughout the entire pipeline, from design and production, to distribution, promotion and consumption phases. The center organizes a Master course in "Communication for the culture industry", in which fashion plays a key role. For the research and educational activities, the Centre has established stable relationships with companies and other organizations working in the fashion industry, at various stages in the supply chain, broad-based international fashion studies network.
The Inter-University Consortium Milano Fashion Institute was founded in 2007, after a ‘gestation’ period lasting several years for the development of the training and research project. The governance of the Consortium is entrusted to the Scientific Board and the Executive Board.
The Scientific Board
The Scientific Board is the administrative body of the Milano Fashion Institute. It consists of six members, namely:
- 2 Representatives of the Bocconi University
- 2 Representatives of the Polytechnic of Milan
- 2 Representatives of the Catholic University
Guido Corbetta
Full professor at the Bocconi University of Corporate strategy and Family business and medium sized companies, Guido Corbetta is responsible for education programmes at the university in the fashion and design sectors. Dean of the Bocconi Graduate School, Director of the Entrepreneurship and Entrepreneur Research Centre (EntER) and senior Professor at SDA Bocconi Business School, he also performs research and teaches executive courses at the following business schools: IESE - Barcelona (Spain), AESE - Lisbon (Portugal), Loyola University - Chicago (USA).
Laura Bovone
Full professor of Communication Sociology at the Catholic University Faculty of Political Science, where she directs the "Fashion and cultural production study centre" and the 1st level Master course "Communication for the culture industry". She has coordinated national research projects and local sub-projects in European programmes on professional issues in the culture industry, on culture businesses as an urban development factor and on responsible consumption.
Arturo Dell'Acqua Bellavitis
President of the Triennale Foundation in Milan and full professor of Industrial Design, Arturo Dell'Acqua Bellavitis is the director of Politecnico di Milano's INDACO Department (Industrial Design, Art, Communication and Fashion). He has held courses and seminars in numerous European and international universities, as well as taking part in design conferences at numerous international museums. He is the author of essays and academic papers.
Carla Lunghi
Researcher in Sociology of Cultural Processes at the Catholic University of Milan where she teaches Social Communication and the evolution of Made in Italy. Collaborates with the Centre for Research Modacult at the same university. Among her publications: Culture Creole: Foreign Entrepreneurs in Milan (Angeli 2003) and with E. Montagnini The fashion of responsibility (Angeli 2007).
Alba Cappellieri
Full professor at the School of Design of the Politecnico of Milan. She teaches Jewellery and Accessories Design and is the Head of the Fashion Design Degree, the Director of the Master in Fashion Accessories and of the post graduate degree in Jewellery Design. From 2014 she is the founder and the director of the Museum of Jewellery at the Vicenza Palladian Basilica and from 2015 she is the President of the Women Jewellery Association Italy.
Her fields of interest are focused on jewellery and accessory design and her researches are now dealing with the wearables technologies related to jewellery. She writes for international design magazines and combines didactical and research activities for the preminent jewellery brands and companies. She has curated several international exhibitions on Jewellery design and is the editor of the www.jewelleryscape.it , the blog for the jewellery community. She has written several books on jewellery including the seminal "Jewellery of the 20th century: from Art Nouveau to Contemporary Design." (Skira 2010).
Paola Varacca Capello
Lecturer of the Management Department at Bocconi University. Her research interests are Business Administration, Strategy, Fashion, Design, Jewellery. Among her recent publications: "Fashion, luxury and design: managing simbolic competiton beyond industry boundaries (with D.Ravasi)"; "Goldsmithing and jewelry: the market" (with A.Catalani) in A.Cappellieri (editor), Jewelry today, Mondadori Electa, 2010.
General Manager
Nicola Guerini
He graduated at Bocconi University with a M.Sc. in Economics & Management for Art, Culture and Communication. He specialized in the fields of Corporate Strategy, Entrepreneurship and Business Planning and in the Management of the Fashion Companies, for which he is currently involved in the related under-graduate and graduate courses at Bocconi University and other University Institutions. He also teaches executive courses in the Strategic Area of the SDA Bocconi Business School concerning Cross Cultural Management.
E-mail: nicola.guerini@milanofashioninstitute.it
The strong ties between Milan and fashion, set up since the second half of the last century, are not represented exclusively by the boutiques and stores that are typical of the most cosmopolitan cities throughout the world. In fact, in Milan there are more than 600 showrooms and 3,000 fashion companies. Milan is also home to some of the most active and important public relations and advertising agencies internationally. And that's not all. In Milan and the surrounding province there are all the business that compose the fashion pipeline: photographers' studios, scouting agencies, production companies, the publishing system and some of the best known, most advanced and innovative distribution formats at global scale. Milan is also the city in which the most important industry associations have been set up, such as the National Chamber for Italian Fashion (CNMI) and the Italian Fashion System (SMI).
More than a production and professional system, Milan is a global fashion stage: the fashion system's leading events, including Milano Collezioni, MIPEL (International Leather Goods Market), MIDO (International Eyewear Fair), MICAM ShoeEvent (International Footwear Fair), and Milano Unica (Italian Textiles Fair), act as a catalyst, drawing fashion sector operators from around the world throughout the year.
Culturally-speaking, Milan is the city in which the Italian history is strongly present and, moreover, in which the Art is strongly linked to the cultural phenomena that characterize the contemporaneity, such as fashion and design themselves.The Scala Theatre, the Duomo, the Royal Palace, the Sforzesco Castle, the Arcimboldi Theatre, the Triennale Design Museum, the Brera Pinacoteca, the Poldi Pezzoli Museum, the twentieth century Museum and the Fashion Museum of Morando Palace are the main symbols of an extensive system of cultural sites that host events and exhibitions throughout the year.
At personal level, Milan offers many different leisure opportunities too: the restaurants and venues in Brera and along the Navigli canals, the boutiques in the fashion ‘Golden Quadrilateral' (the luxury retail district in the centre of Milan) and the mega-stores in corso Vittorio Emanuele, the showrooms of top contemporary design brands, the numerous events, like the International Furniture Fair (Salone del Mobile) and Fuorisalone events, along with a a widespread network of small boutique that animate the life of many neighborhourds outside of the well known city center. Milan has also a sporting tradition rooted in the distant past, with teams that have won most titles at European and world level, in both major and minor sports. Finally, as well as being centrally located in Europe, Milan is Northern Italy's most important railway hub, with more than 80 km of metropolitan networks (and two more lines under construction) and 280 km of tram lines.