On January 2017, the third edition of the annual Fashion and Technology Summit hosted by Luisa Via Roma was held. This event opens the calendar year by bringing together experts in fashion, technology and big data from around the world to present, discuss and network their ideas.

This year, Polimoda was the Main Partner, as the Institute sees that being at the forefront of fashion means to be at the forefront of technology. Polimoda ’s Director, Danilo Venturi was invited by the CEO of Luisa Via Roma, Mr Andrea Panconesi, to take part in the roundtable discussion on the future of trends, and to launch the partnership with LUISAVIAROMA and our new master’s course in Fashion Store Concepts.

After a day full of themes like digital empathy, bespoke algorithms and micro-segmentation, Danilo Venturi brought things back to their basics, and the “essence of the human”. Joined by Chief Marketing Officer of Launch Metrics, Alison Levy and Bibiana Mesa, Marketing Manager of WGSN, and moderated by Tech Advisor, Contributor to the Huffington Post and alumna of Polimoda Sissi Johnson, Venturi explained how Polimoda’s students, who are digital natives and also represent the youngest clients of many fashion companies with huge buying power in the industry, are both incredibly adaptive to new technologies by default, but are also incredibly primitive in their incessant behaviour of tapping a screen. This paradox, along with other contradictory macro-trends are key to understanding the future of the industry; how heritage has become mainstream and what this means for true classicism, for example, and “the convergence between different jobs […] We ask designers to be entrepreneurs.” Because the fashion industry is about humans, and learning is inherently a human need and desire, Danilo concluded the discussion with Learning is the trend.