The First Digital Fashion Platform Ever

Covid-19 has influenced the world in many ways, adapting all lifestyle at the comfort of our living rooms. From smart working and home schooling, all the way to online festivals, fairs and even fashion shows. The entire world leveled up into the future of business, and fashion is part of it.

The Italian Trade Agency launched a new digital platform to help Italian designers show their collections avoiding all the delays caused by the new pandemic. This directly eases the way foreign brands trade within the US, and the American audience to reach foreign products as well.

Technology is playing an enormous role for American retailers, by expanding the valuable opportunities beyond its limitations and declining the ones that subtract. It takes away the weight off the shoulders by transforming everything to just one click.

EXTRAITSTYLE (Extraordinary Italian Style), funded by a grant of the Italian Government that will allow companies to expand their horizons and reach the US. From small artisanal family-owned designer pieces to masterfully detailed crafts, the 3D platform’s mission is to connect fashion and design businesses with the American audience by targeting for the first time a non-EU market. Each brand will have their own digital dedicated boutique where collections will be shown and social media, video and business communication will take place, as a fully supported digital market process.

The main aim of the platform is to support emerging artisans by giving them the opportunity to showcase abroad and make up for the loss the pandemic brought into their businesses. The US is filled with famous major luxury Italian brands, and by that, emerging designers get forgotten. EXTRAITSTYLE is responding to the needs of social distancing and actually enhancing the lives of the ones affected by it. “EXTRAITSTYLE developed as a tool to help Italian fashion brands aiming to succeed in the USA marketplace by retaining quality and sustainability. One of our goals is to shed light on talented yet relatively unknown designers and share their story with the American audience through original story telling and 3D imageries” said Antonio Laspina, excecutive director of the Italian Trade Agency.

The platform is not a substitution to fairs but is an additional plus for businesses in order to keep their jobs a float. Hoping that in the future physical events will still be part of our world, but this time supported by a digital innovation as well.

Alex Heymert Siles.