Opera Campi innovation is someway “certified” by the universities are contacting us every month.
In January 2018 the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising asked us a swatch of our premium hemp.
In September 2018 the Rotterdam School of Management asked us details about our project
In April 2019 the ESCP Business School in Paris interviewed us for a research about sustainable brands.
Here’s an extract of the interview that will be part of a research of a group of students, leaded by Emily Sabet, about sustainable brands. The thesis was named “The Contribution of Spiritual Values to a More Sustainable World through Individual, Team and Organisational Motivation to Change”.
Which change did Opera Campi wish to bring?
The technical properties behind the Hemp fabric are very interesting: it’s durable, breathable, thermoregulating. Hemp is also more environmentally sustainable than other natural fabrics, because it requires less water, no pesticides, it purifies the lands and purifies the air by absorbing carbon dioxide. It’s perfectly compatible with today’s world because today people want something ethical and sustainable. Opera Campi gets this opportunity and concentrated on all the raw materials that are forgotten. We wanted to do something in the most innovative and quality-oriented way. But ethics are not “cool” enough here yet, the communication of it are still quite weak. So I wanted to create something that preserved the forgotten values and materials. These were my motivations: the uniqueness of hemp and the goal to create a brand where when opening the website, you see a map and you buy the products based on the origin of the fabric (as opposed to a website with products on it).
Which values is this company based on today?
· Tradition
· Biology and technology
· Biodiversity
· Design (durable timeless garments while being avant-garde)
Do you think said values are spiritual? How so?
We want to transmit a feeling with the products that is related to the fact that almost all people are living in cities, so the feeling of wearing such a natural and “elegantly rustic” garment, reminds you of the fields and of freedom. It reminds you of a more rural life, the life we were living centuries ago, a life not restricted from modern limits such as stress and routine (which are disturbing our spiritual values). That’s the connection there is between the brand and the spirit.
Does Opera Campi have a quadruple bottom line (economic, social, environmental, purpose)?
Economically, it depends on the time. Every experiment is difficult at the beginning. It’s not our main occupation, so to speak. No one in our team lives off of it and we all have other jobs. We need time before having a strong economic bottom line. It also depends on the market trends. We have a very high conversion rate on our website, so many of the people visiting our website end up buying the products. We also had a successful Kickstarter campaign last year, receiving many positive feedbacks.
Socially, yes. We work with historical Italian tailors, and try to recover their work, since they are in crisis. Especially in Parma, because of the low-cost brands. No one is going to the tailor anymore, so what we do is connecting them to the customers through internet. We create a channel for them. It has a social impact.
Environmentally, yes. Because of the materials and what we talked about earlier (hemp).
Purpose: to preserve the past. To innovate tradition. To keep the past alive but to make it modern.
Which role does Italian culture have in all this, if any at all?
In general, it’s becoming in Italy an added value to make something ethical and sustainable and connected to some emotion, and spiritual values. I hope this will become the norm, the standard, not just a trend. We hope all companies will push towards this.
Opera Campi studied by ESCP Paris Business School was originally published in OPERA CAMPI on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
