Barcelona Fashion Summit 2019: twelve days for the largest fashion business event in Spain

Barcelona Fashion Summit starts the countdown for its seventh edition: twelve days for the largest fashion event in Spain. The event will bring together on next February 5 experts and managers from the sector at Teatre Nacional de Catalunya (TNC), in Barcelona.

Under the title Fashion Año 0: Claves para reinventar el negocio de la moda (Fashion Year 0: Keys to reinvent fashion business), the congress is organized by Modaes.es in collaboration with 080 Barcelona Fashion and has the sponsorship of Board, Facebook, Minsait (an Indra company) and TecnoCampus.

In a defiant setting where fashion sales are not completely achieve the capitalization of a favourable environment, Barcelona Fashion Summit 2019 wants to rise the challenge of turning towards other sectors of the Spanish and international economy, from gastronomy to technology.

In a challenging context where fashion sales do not end up capitalizing on a favorable economic environment, Barcelona Fashion Summit 2019 poses the challenge of looking at other sectors of the Spanish and international economy, from gastronomy to technology, to devise which strategies can fashion adopt to seduce the consumer again.

Barcelona Fashion Summit 2019 will be titled ‘Fashion Year 0: Keys to reinvent fashion business’

To discuss the topic, the convention will count on the participation of executives and experts from companies and reference entities for the sector, but who came to fashion from other industries. Dimas Gimeno, Agatha Ruiz de la Prada, Bernardo Blanco and Cristiana Zito are some of the participants in the panel, which will also include executives from leading companies of the sector in Spain: Inditex, Mango, Tendam, Desigual or Tous.

The first conference of the day will be conducted by Chiqui Calleja, co-founder of the restaurant group Larrumba, who will present his case in the restoration sector. After the entrepreneur, Marc Soler, co-founder of 21 Buttons, will take the floor, and will go through what fashion can learn from technology.

In the first round table of the morning, entitled La moda, a vista de ‘outsider’ (Fashion, from the point of view of an outsider), will participate fashion executives who came from outside this sector, such as Daniel Muñoz, IT Director at Desigual and with experience in groups like Conforama or Caprabo; Andrés López, Operations Director at Pepe Jeans and former at Johnson Controls Automotive and Camper; or José María Ruiz, who joined GOCCO in 2017 as CEO after working at Juguettos and Telepizza.

Dimas Gimeno, former president of El Corte Inglés, will analyse the challenges that the retail sector must address

The table will be completed by Maite Aranzábal, member of the board at Adolfo Domínguez, who has a long career in the retail sector, and Francisco Ambrós, partner at Deloitte specialized in the financial services area.

After the break for networking, the publicist Cristiana Zito will take the floor to explain what lessons can fashion learn from another industry in full transformation: the motor. Zita is executive at the advertising agency DDB, responsible for the last Golf campaign.

Another one of the main dishes of the day will arrive before the meal. The businessman and investor Dimas Gimeno, former president of El Corte Inglés, will analyse in his talk the challenges and opportunities for retail, how physical stores can be differentiated and what are the challenges of the retail sector.

Managers from Inditex, C&A, Pepe Jeans or Tendam will complete the programme of the largest congress about fashion business in Spain

The word innovation will also be part of Barcelona Fashion Summit 2019. At the last round table in the morning, where there will be executives like Elena Carasso, responsible for the digital area of Mango; Carolina de la Calzada, Digital Business Director of Tous; Bernardo Blanco, former CEO of Blanco and today at the head of the swimwear brand Yshey; Ignacio de Pinedo, CEO of ISDI school, and Inés Arroyo, promoter of the start-up Laagam, who will discuss how to transform the fashion business.

After lunch, it will be Arun Arora’s turn, a McKinsey partner and former Apple, Groupon and Sears, who will revise how disruptive digital operators are changing the rules of the game.

The grand finale will be brought by a panel of executives of great trajectory in the sector. Domingos Esteves, at the head of C&A in Spain; the designer Agatha Ruiz de la Prada; Ignacio Sierra, Corporate CEO of Tendam; Borja Vázquez, co-founder of Scalpers, and Javier Vello, partner responsible for the retail and consumer sector of EY in Italy, Spain and Portugal, will sit down to discuss how to make the consumer fall in love again.

As every year, an Inditex executive will be in charge of finishing the event. This year, the closing speech will be conducted by Alfred Vernís, academic director of sustainability at the Inditex group, who has an extensive professional career as a teacher at ESADE business school.