Goodbye to Italia

‘We need to be clever in our selling technique. How can we entice people so that we convince them to buy the goods?’ Eugenio says out loud one day. Iucci just looks at him, used to his rhetorical questions and musings. She knows he will come up with an answer once something is on his mind.

It is at lunchtime when he tells her, ‘I have booked us into a course that will teach us how to size and measure up customers; what styles are most suitable for big or small frames, tall or short people.’ Eugenio’s zeal never flags and the resultant business requires them to outsource to a nearby factory so that twice a week, they send through the designs, material, and measurements of their customers for the garments to be made.

Iucci works twice as hard at her sales pitch, gaining more confidence every day. ‘Vieni qua! Come here!’ she is often heard to say. ‘Come and feel this material and imagine how good it will make you feel. And in that section, over there,’ she points, ‘we have just one-off designs … no one else will be wearing the same as you.’ Customers soon catch onto the pret a porter concept. They enjoy the attention to detail and the clothes that are specially made to fit so well. It is not surprising that before long, queries come in about women’s clothes.