LINEAPELLE
01 · ORIGIN
We came in from the other side.
TACTICA’s relationship with LINEAPELLE began while working for Türkiye’s leather industry.
We had already spent several years working with Türkiye’s fashion and apparel ecosystem, strengthening its international positioning and building relationships with key European institutions and markets. As that work expanded into leather, LINEAPELLE and UNIC became part of the equation.
Turkish companies were already participating in LINEAPELLE, but the opportunity went beyond attendance. Their presence, positioning and relationships needed to better reflect the strength of the industry behind them.
As part of a wider international strategy for Turkish leather, TACTICA worked to strengthen relationships with the Italian leather ecosystem, including LINEAPELLE and UNIC.
Meet the Turkish Effect was part of that effort to move perception beyond manufacturing and towards design, creativity and contemporary fashion.01 · ORIGIN /We came in from the other side.
Meet the Turkish Effect · Milan · 2013
02 · THE EVIDENCE
The industry was stronger than its presence.
By 2013, TACTICA’s work with Türkiye had already evolved from broader apparel and fashion positioning into the leather sector.
The Turkish Leather Summit made the next challenge explicit: the industry had significant production strength, but greater international relevance would depend on design, innovation, branding and stronger connections to the global fashion system.
LINEAPELLE was already part of that conversation. Its representatives documented the growing participation of Turkish exhibitors and visitors at the fair, alongside increasing leather trade between Italy and Türkiye.
TACTICA helped build the relationships around that dialogue, bringing key figures from the Italian fashion and leather system, together with international media, into direct contact with the Turkish industry.
For LINEAPELLE, the significance went beyond the Summit. It saw first hand how TACTICA could connect industry, fashion, institutions and media around a shared objective.
03 · THE RELATIONSHIP
The work became the introduction.
The Turkish mandate included strengthening relationships with LINEAPELLE and UNIC.
As part of that work, TACTICA brought to Istanbul influential figures from the Italian fashion, leather and media ecosystem, including designer Ermanno Scervino, Jane Reeve, CEO of Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana, Luca Boltri representing LINEAPELLE and UNIC, and leading Italian and international media.
The programme created direct contact with Turkish companies, production capabilities and the wider industry, while building relationships across fashion, institutions, media and leather.
For LINEAPELLE, this meant experiencing first hand how TACTICA could bring the right people together, create the context for meaningful relationships and turn those connections into something operational.
That experience opened a new phase.
What had begun as work on behalf of Türkiye gradually evolved into a direct collaboration with LINEAPELLE itself.
Trust changed the mandate.
The relationship developed through specific assignments.
When LINEAPELLE wanted Brazilian designer Ronaldo Fraga for a keynote in Bologna, Fulvia Bacci asked TACTICA to make it happen.
We took responsibility for the engagement from access to delivery.
Fraga brought Carne Seca and the research behind his work with Brazilian leather to LINEAPELLE, placing design, material innovation and Brazilian creative culture inside the fair’s international conversation.
More requests followed.
The pattern was simple: understand what LINEAPELLE wanted to achieve, identify the people and opportunities that could move it forward, and take responsibility for making them happen.
Milan changed the scale.
LINEAPELLE and UNIC had long been headquartered in Milan.
But the fair had built its strength in Bologna, and physical proximity had never translated into real access to the Milan fashion ecosystem.
Moving the fair to Milan created an opportunity to change that.
TACTICA saw the relocation as a chance to build recognition, relationships and legitimacy through projects with the institutions already shaping that ecosystem.
Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana became one of the first major bridges.
The question was no longer simply how LINEAPELLE could operate in Milan. It was how far an industrial platform could extend its influence.
An industry archive entered Fashion Week.
For three decades, LINEAPELLE had been building an extraordinary historical research archive of more than 15,000 leather samples.
Until then, the archive had primarily functioned as a research resource, accessible by appointment to designers, students, teachers and other creatives.
TACTICA saw a much bigger possibility: transforming an internal industry resource into a cultural asset capable of creating value for the fashion ecosystem LINEAPELLE wanted to enter.
On 25 February 2015, Leather, an Italian Heritage / Pelle, una storia italiana opened at Palazzo Giureconsulti as part of the Milano Moda Donna Fashion Hub, in collaboration with Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana.
For the first time, LINEAPELLE’s historical archive moved from an internal research resource into the public language of Fashion Week.
The opening also made the collaboration itself public.
Jane Reeve, CEO of Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana, and Salvatore Mercogliano, Managing Director of LINEAPELLE, presented the project together, making visible a new connection between the industrial world of leather and the wider fashion system.
Materials, techniques and industrial knowledge that normally sat behind fashion were brought to the centre of its cultural conversation.
What usually lived behind fashion moved to the front of it.
Milan had opened the fashion system. The next frontier was global luxury.
Milan had opened the fashion system. The next frontier was global luxury.
CONDÉ NAST INTERNATIONAL LUXURY CONFERENCE
Florence opened another door.
After Milan, the next objective was broader: access to the people, platforms and conversations shaping global luxury.
When Suzy Menkes and Condé Nast International launched the first International Luxury Conference in Florence, TACTICA saw an unusually relevant opportunity for LINEAPELLE. The inaugural theme, Hard Luxury, placed materiality, quality, heritage and enduring value at the centre of the discussion.
LINEAPELLE already belonged in that conversation. What it needed was access to it.
Although the sponsorship programme was already well advanced, TACTICA secured LINEAPELLE a place among the sponsors of the inaugural conference at Palazzo Vecchio.
LINEAPELLE became part of the visual and relational fabric of the event, appearing on the conference stage and communications while gaining direct access to the people and conversations around the programme.
The sponsorship was the entry point. The real objective was access.
THE CLOAK OF THE DRAGON
Lincoln Center · New York · 2015
In July 2015, Italian fashion arrived in New York as a coordinated system. Government, trade institutions and industry platforms converged around a major push into the US market, with LINEAPELLE and Milano Unica forming part of that wider moment. WWD described the initiative as a year-long programme built around US retail, trade shows, special events, incoming services and a major media campaign.
TACTICA worked across institutional relationships, media relations, stakeholder strategy and event delivery, helping translate that ambition into a cultural moment in New York.
The material became part of the performance.
The Cloak of the Dragon was conceived around an unusual proposition: demonstrating that leather could move beyond the categories traditionally associated with it and perform on a ballet stage.
Costumes designed by Erika Carretta transformed Made in Italy leather into lightweight, flexible garments capable of responding to the movement and physical demands of ballet.
For LINEAPELLE, culture became a way of making the material visible differently.
Lincoln Center changed the perception of the project before the curtain even rose.
TACTICA secured Alice Tully Hall, placing The Cloak of the Dragon inside one of the world’s most prestigious performing-arts environments.
For the company, led by La Scala étoile Sabrina Brazzo, the venue mattered technically as well as symbolically, providing the professional stage conditions the production required.
TACTICA took responsibility for the New York operation end to end, working across institutional relationships, production and suppliers, invitations, guest strategy, meetings and event operations.
On 20 July, the evening brought together a cocktail reception, Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana’s NEXT GENERATION exhibition and the performance of The Cloak of the Dragon.
TACTICA built the guest strategy with the same intent, bringing together fashion institutions, department-store leadership, buyers, editors, industry figures and cultural personalities around the Italian fashion system.
The result was not simply a full house. It was the right network in the room.
THE CLOAK OF THE DRAGON
London Palladium · London · 2016
In January 2016, The Cloak of the Dragon reached London, taking the project to the London Palladium, one of the West End’s most iconic theatres.
Timed to coincide with LINEAPELLE London, the annual appointment presenting the sector’s latest trends and bringing together a curated selection of around one hundred producers, the performance extended the industry gathering into the cultural life of the city.
LINEAPELLE participants were invited to attend, joined by a broader group of guests from London’s fashion, business and cultural communities.
TACTICA organised the London event and secured the London Palladium, taking responsibility for the venue, production coordination, invitations, guests and event delivery.
The London presentation brought together LINEAPELLE, the Italian Ministry of Economic Development and the Italian Trade Agency, with La Scala étoile Sabrina Brazzo leading the company.
The project’s international trajectory now extended from New York to London.
What had begun as a cultural expression of an industry was becoming an international platform for it.
AND THE WORK CAME BACK TO THE FAIR.
The wider cultural and institutional programme had expanded LINEAPELLE’s reach. In February 2016, the work returned to the fair itself.
For LINEAPELLE’s opening press conference at Fiera Milano Rho, TACTICA worked across the full operation: venue and catering coordination, guest and media lists, invitations, press materials, media outreach, interviews and coverage.
The conference brought together Cristina Tajani for the Comune di Milano, Riccardo Monti, President of ICE, and Carlo Capasa, President of Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana, reconnecting the fair with the institutional and fashion relationships developed around it.
TACTICA also coordinated the media opportunities surrounding the opening, helping extend LINEAPELLE’s visibility beyond its established industrial and specialist press into fashion, business, news and television.
And the fair itself gave that conversation scale: 1,153 exhibitors from 43 countries, more than 43,400 square metres, and an international visitor base extending across 110 countries.
The point was never to take LINEAPELLE away from its industry. It was to make the industry visible in a wider context.
LINEAPELLE at FIERAMILANO by Fashion Channel
One relationship. A much wider field of action.
What began with a mandate around Türkiye developed into a long-term relationship with LINEAPELLE itself.
Over time, the field expanded:
Industry.
Fashion.
Institutions.
Media.
Culture.
Luxury.
International stages.
TACTICA’s role expanded with it, connecting people, opportunities and execution across worlds that rarely operate together.
Trust changed the mandate.
The relationship kept widening it.