May 10, 2014 – Milan, Palazzo Isimbardi.
It is an event that punctually marks the academic year at Istituto Secoli, yet the Graduation Ceremony is a moving experience every time for everyone involved: from the now “former” students who officially enter the professional world, to the teachers who proudly bid them farewell, as well as the Institute’s President and the entire staff.
Dr. Bruno Dapei, President of the Council of the Province of Milan, once again acted as “host” this year, welcoming the Institute and the new fashion professionals to the prestigious Council Chamber of Palazzo Isimbardi.
Fausto Vago and Ilaria Reinoldi of Officine Bianche then presented the new online Internship & Placement service dedicated to all Istituto Secoli alumni and to companies in the sector looking for new professional profiles.
Prof. Danilo Migliorini, Chief Operating Officer of Istituto Secoli, introduced by an entertaining video, presented an ironic overview of the different categories of characters that make up a corporate work group and that the young new graduates will have the opportunity to recognize. Then, a concluding message on teamwork, the only sustainable corporate organizational system to successfully face an increasingly demanding and complex fashion market: it finds its strength in diversity, that is, in the enhancement and integration of individual group members.
Dr. Antonio Sgroi, representing Lectra, a leading company in the production of software and hardware for the apparel industry, and ANTIA (National Association of Fashion System Professional Technicians), presented the latest generation of apparel design software, 3D CAD, clarifying that this is not an alternative to classic two-dimensional CAD design, but rather completes it.
In conclusion, President Stefano Secoli, on the occasion of the Institute’s eightieth anniversary, shared a brief history of the founder:
“There was a determined young man who in 1927 (he was 15 years old!) studied in the evenings and worked during the day at Singer in Venice as a warehouse worker. Singer was a very large company that built sewing machines and distributed them throughout the Veneto region, but the warehouse job was too small for this promising young man. A fire and a desire to grow burned within him that were never extinguished: he gathered information and experience from his ‘older’ colleagues in search of a new idea. In this, his relationship with the sales representatives who traveled through the cities and countryside of Veneto was important, from whom he learned what customers were looking for. For them, he invented the toolbox containing the kit to change the sewing machine belt; this idea became so popular that all the representatives wanted one.
The winning idea, however, was to fulfill the dream of everyone who owned a sewing machine: knowing how to design and create beautiful clothes!
This is the founding idea of Istituto Secoli, the ‘why’ it was born and also the reason it is still alive and well 80 years later!”
The wish for the graduates, as simple as it is important, was therefore to realize the founder’s dream with the same passion and boldness, and to enter the world of work with the right humility of those ‘starting out,’ but also with the strength that comes from the awareness of having acquired a ‘surname’ that in the world of apparel is synonymous with quality and expertise.
