Italiano
EnglishBreakfast in a space halfway between a café and a fashion boutique launched us into the Retail Experience that presented the Milano Retail Tour online shop, just opened for booking the new trend tours for retail professionals and for anyone interested in keeping up with trends in contemporary retailing or in seeing Milan from a new point of view. Coffee, cake and fresh juice came with the ethnographer’s kit and instructions on how to use it.
10.30 am, everyone on board the luxury shuttle. First stop: new technologies applied to retail, spaces designed by a very famous archistar, fashion of the highest pedigree: pure Quadrilatero style. A little later we move just a few metres, yet it feels like landing in a different era, where traditions meet the most modern technologies: made-to-measure fitness in intimate spaces, dark wood, a Victorian setting bordering on the Belle Époque. On to the third location: a fashion boutique? An art gallery? Neither and both. The formal experimentation typical of the artistic avant-garde spills over into the products, the way they are displayed and the design of the rooms. The tour ends in the last space, where we have lunch and share ideas and impressions: Californian flavours in an eco-sustainable setting, a social co-working space, one node in an international network of people and places with the same dreams and ambitions: creating a better world. Glocalisation at its best.
The new tours, available from 28 September on the MiRT online shop and taking place in Milan from 22 November, are called Super Green, Classic Reloaded and Art for Sale. Each route gives participants the chance to discover shops, concept stores, bars, restaurants and meeting places that are particularly innovative because they are emblematic of trends that are revolutionising the sector.
“One year after the start of Milano Retail Tour,” says Andrea Bertagnolio, co-founder of MiRT, “we are delighted and very excited to launch the new Experience format: designed for people who work in retail, for the curious of every kind, for those looking for ideas and inspiration for their own shop, or for those who simply want a unique experience in the world of Milanese shopping. It differs from the Corporate project launched in 2011,” adds Andrea Bertagnolio, “which was conceived specifically for large international companies as an unconventional training module, an original approach to team building and a new format for company conventions.”
“The world of retail evolves very quickly and not everyone has the time and the opportunity to stay up to date,” says Elena Marinoni, Consumer and Mindstyles Trendwatching Director at MiRT. “We want to offer the people who take part in our Experiences a new perspective from which to look at Milan, far from the usual routes. We take them to the shops, concept stores, galleries, bars and restaurants that express a change that is under way, and we reflect together on what they mean.”
“We get to know and explore the world of retail and the landscape of trends in an unconventional way,” stresses Maria Roberta Castelli, co-founder of MiRT and owner of Creattiva, the communication agency where the idea for the format was born. “We look to the future with enthusiasm and creativity, and we are already working on new themed tours, for example a route dedicated entirely to digital technology, of which we had a small preview on the press tour and which will soon be launched on our e-shop.”
“Each tour expresses a precise trend,” adds Alberto Costabello, trend forecaster at MiRT. “The three routes that will cross Milan in November mirror three influential trends in the world of consumption. At the preview we were pleased to see people appreciate the rigour of our ethnographic approach, which also sets us apart from our competitors.”
The Super Green Tour, with its sustainable vocation, takes visitors to places that bring together attention to energy saving, recycled materials, environmentally sound products and eco-friendly interiors. This tour shows the spread of places that express a zero-impact vision of the world, able to combine ethics and aesthetics.
Tradition brought up to date, the handmade, the celebration of Made in Italy: all this is told in the Classic Reloaded Tour. Small but great businesses that appeal to the consumer’s sentimental side by reviving tradition and making intelligent use of new technologies, to stay competitive in the global market.
Avant-garde in inspiration, the Art for Sale Tour brings together retail spaces that sit halfway between shop and art gallery, where goods are staged like real works of art and formal experimentation becomes the substance of an immersive experience with great visual impact. The visitor is first of all a spectator, as well as a potential buyer.
The selection of the stores that are part of the MiRT project is the result of careful work, as Bertagnolio points out: “we constantly observe more than 100 shops in Milan, in addition to the necessary mapping of new openings”.