How do master tailors deal with these difficult times? How do they stay productive during the lockdown? What did they personally learn from this experience? That’s what we were asked to answer about by the blogger of The Italian Hand Podcast Jordi Brew. And that’s what the mind behind Saint Gregory said during his short interview, sharing is thoughts together with some other people of influence in the field of Italian manufacture.
Here below you will find an abstract, however, you can listen to the full podcast here!
The last weeks have been incredible for all of us, of course, and so it was for me too.
We are someway forced to slow down and we had to deeply change our lifestyle. To be honest, here in Naples, we are not used to slowing down: it is not in our DNA. A lot of friends from all over the world are asking why we sing from the balconies like we are living in a festival, for example. I think this is becaue we can’t stop enjoying life.
We understand that this is a sad situation, but we have to find the strength to carry on living.
Since all this started my life has changed too, but not so much, at the end. I spend a lot of time at home with my family taking care of my beautiful children, and this is the silver lining of this situation. During the last years, my job has taken me to travel a lot all over the world to meet the customer for the bespoke projects, for example, so I’m happy I can live “more” my family in the daily routine now. Thi is especially with my little princess, Ludovica, she always want to come with me at the workshop and sew something for me, I suppose she took after me the passion for tailoring!
Another thing that I usually do everyday is to call my employees, they are my second family. Everyone spend a great part of the the personal time with colleagues at work, so it obvious that you create a friendship relationship with them. Above all, I’m concerned about the master tailors, due to their age, however I know that they are taking care of theirselves. Even before the lockdown I let them decide to stay home if they wanted and work from there. The same I did for some women employees, as they had to look after children after the school were closed.
Apart from all this, I think that everyone should try to maitain a sort of routine and dedicate part of time taking care of the projects already started. We can’t go out because it is important to help flatten the curve avoiding social contacts, however, today a lot of things can be done from home. I already started my researches for the new projects for my company, the new website, the e-commerce the next summer collection, and I will continue working, the only thing changing is that I will do that from home.
I should say I’m lucky: from my house in Sorrento I can enjoy everyday a beautiful view of the coastline, I’m more inspired than ever. I enjoy the same view that inspired the famous song Caruso of maestro Lucio Dalla “la dove il mare luccica e tira forte il vento….”
This experience has tougth me that, sometimes, slowing down is important to not loose what is really important in life: family, friendships, health. An hectic lifestyle can be dangerous and at the end you can also loose your creativity. Sometime we need to stop and admire more deeply the beautiful things we already have.
Ennio Collaro Valente