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The rise of the Fashion Valley

From workshops to the first principal companies

The clothing industry of the Mendrisiotto is older than the Fashion Valley. At the beginning of the twentieth century the southern district of Ticino counted, according to the figures collected by Tio.ch, four clothing companies with 75 employees. By 1937 there were 67 companies with more than two hundred workers. In the 1960s, when the district's small factories sewed shirts, underwear and trousers for Swiss and Italian brands, more than two hundred companies employed about 8,500 persons.1 These manufacturing firms relied on low wages, on women's work and on commuters from the province of Como. They shared the fate of the European clothing industry when production moved to Eastern Europe and Asia in the 1980s and 1990s. By the early 2000s the manufacturing core had shrunk to about four thousand jobs.2 The tradition left behind a stock of industrial buildings, a workforce familiar with textiles and a network of suppliers, forwarders and customs brokers that the next generation of companies could use.

The first large Italian group to move part of its operations to Ticino was Ermenegildo Zegna, the menswear house from Trivero in the province of Biella. Its Swiss company Consitex SA began production in the Mendrisiotto in 1977, according to a recent account in the Italian leather trade press, with labour cost savings of about a quarter compared with Italy. Ticinomoda dated the move to 1976 and described Zegna as the pioneer of the trend.3 Consitex grew into a substantial manufacturer in Mendrisio, where about seven hundred employees were still to remain after the partial transfer of production to Italy announced in the 2020s. It remained one of the few companies of the cluster that combined real tailoring with trading and logistics functions. Its history illustrates the first motive for coming to Ticino, namely lower labour costs within commuting distance of the Italian textile districts. At the time, employers also considered Italian labour law rigid.

The arrival of the luxury groups, 1990–2013

The second phase began in the 1990s and was driven by groups that wanted to centralize the worldwide distribution of goods made in Italy. Gucci opened an outlet store at the Fox Town shopping centre in Mendrisio in 1995. Its logistics and trading company Luxury Goods International settled in Cadempino, north of Lugano, in 1996 or 1997.4 When Gucci became part of the French group Pinault-Printemps-Redoute, later renamed Kering, LGI became the logistics and trading platform for the group's luxury brands, including Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Bottega Veneta, Alexander McQueen, Stella McCartney and Balenciaga.5 By 2018 it employed about 900 persons at three sites in Cadempino, Bioggio and Sant'Antonino, the last of which lies in the Magadino plain near Bellinzona. The RSI described it as the canton's principal taxpayer.6

Other groups followed. Giorgio Armani maintained a Swiss operation in Mendrisio until 2016, Prada had a head office in Mendrisio that it closed in the same year, and Hugo Boss established Hugo Boss Ticino SA in Coldrerio, between Mendrisio and Chiasso.7 Michael Kors, the American group later renamed Capri Holdings, built its European headquarters in the Lugano area. Its list of subsidiaries for 2025 still named Michael Kors (Switzerland) International GmbH, Michael Kors (Switzerland) GmbH, Versace Suisse SA and J Choo (Switzerland) AG.8 Tom Ford ran a logistics and distribution facility in Stabio until 2019, and Guess decided in 2016 to move its European design centre from Osmannoro near Florence to Lugano, a decision that affected about ninety employees in Italy.9 Smaller brands such as La Martina, Marni and Abercrombie & Fitch were also present in the cluster around 2012.10

Notes

  1. Tio.ch (7 October 2018, above). ↩
  2. Tio.ch (7 October 2018, above); swissinfo.ch, "Fashion Valley threatened by EU customs tax" (12 March 2004), https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/fashion-valley-threatened-by-eu-customs-tax/3810446 (about 4,000 jobs in 2004). ↩
  3. La Conceria, "Consitex (Zegna Group), partial transfer from Switzerland to Italy", https://www.laconceria.it/en/luxury/zegnas-about-turn-leaving-switzerland-for-italy-after-48-years (move in 1977, labour cost savings of 25 per cent); FashionNetwork (17 October 2012, above) (Zegna as pioneer in 1976). The two sources differ by one year. ↩
  4. La Conceria, "Farewell to Switzerland: Kering closes its logistics' center, while Gucci the outlet", https://www.laconceria.it/en/luxury/farewell-to-switzerland-kering-closes-its-logistics-center-while-gucci-the-outlet (outlet opened 1995, LGI in Cadempino since 1997); RSI (8 October 2018, above) (arrival in 1996). ↩
  5. RSI (8 October 2018, above). PPR changed its name to Kering on 22 March 2013: Wikipedia (Italian), "Kering", https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kering (consulted as a last resort; the English version dates the change to March 2013). ↩
  6. RSI (8 October 2018, above). ↩
  7. RSI, "Senza Armani 8 mio in meno" (28 January 2017), https://www.rsi.ch/info/ticino-grigioni-e-insubria/Senza-Armani-8-mio-in-meno--995853.html (Armani: about 40 jobs lost in 2016 and a loss of CHF 8 million a year in tax revenue for the municipality of Mendrisio); Tio.ch (7 October 2018, above) (Prada closed its Swiss seat at the FoxTown in Mendrisio, where it had been present since 1998; staff cuts and salary reductions at Hugo Boss in Coldrerio from 2015); Moneyhouse, company entry HUGO BOSS Ticino SA, Via Sant'Apollonia 32, 6877 Coldrerio, https://www.moneyhouse.ch/it/company/hugo-boss-ticino-sa-13612342991. ↩
  8. Capri Holdings Limited, List of Subsidiaries, Exhibit 21.1 to Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended 29 March 2025, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1530721/000153072125000052/ cpri03292025ex211.htm. Capri agreed in April 2025 to sell Versace to Prada for EUR 1.25 billion, and Prada completed the acquisition on 2 December 2025: Wikipedia, "Versace", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Versace (consulted as a last resort). ↩
  9. RSI, "Tom Ford chiude a Stabio" (12 September 2019), https://www.rsi.ch/info/ticino-grigioni-e-insubria/Tom-Ford-chiude-a-Stabio--1171237.html; Modaes, "Guess traslada de Florencia a Suiza su centro de diseño europeo y recorta 90 empleos" (4 April 2016), https://www.modaes.com/empresa/20160404/guess-traslada-de-florencia-a-suiza-su-centro-de-diseno-europeo-y-recorta-90-empleos.html. ↩
  10. FashionNetwork (17 October 2012, above). ↩

For general information only. This article does not constitute legal or tax advice, does not replace advice on an individual case and creates no lawyer-client relationship. It reflects the legal position as of August 2025.

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