If you’re reading this, you’ve probably had the dream at some point. Fashion. Paris. Milan. The shows, the front rows, the studios, the idea that work could look like that. It’s a powerful image, and an industry very good at projecting it. But at the end of the day, it’s still a job. The meetings run long. The targets need to be hit. Most people are just people doing their work, answering emails, figuring it out as they go. And it’s still a business that needs to be monetised.
If you’ve ever said “I want to work in fashion” and then immediately realised you have no idea what that actually means, this article is for you.
This is a deep dive with Luigi Parla, a Bocconi alum who graduated from the MSc in Marketing Management in 2021 and has since moved through some of the industry’s most important roles (and most misunderstood) functions: merchandising, brand management, and account management, across very different types of companies. What follows is part personal story (the kind you’ll probably relate to more than you expect) and part practical guide.
Luigi’s perspective feels real in the way fashion rarely gets described online, and it doubles as a reality check on what the industry looks like once the TikTok version of “I work in fashion” fades out. No glamour filter. Just the real thing.
If you’re trying to turn a dream into a real path, start here. Happy reading…
Ridhi: Tell us a bit about your background. Where did you grow up, and what kind of kid were you?
Luigi Parla: I was born in Caserta, a city in southern Italy with just over 70,000 people. In 2017, we could claim the title of Italy’s worst city for quality of life according to Il Sole 24 Ore, though Reggio Calabria soon took that title from us.
I was lucky to grow up in a middle-class family that, by being close, present and supportive, allowed me to live quite comfortably.
The kid I was isn’t that different from the adult I am: critical, direct, curious, determined, competitive, often a bit out of touch with reality, and with humour as a defensive mechanism. My childhood was mostly spent studying, hanging out in the courtyard below my building, doing taekwondo and playing video games – I’d say I was a relatively happy child.
Ridhi: What got you to Bocconi? Was it always the plan, or did it happen through a turning point?
Luigi Parla: I wish I had planned it. My background inevitably shaped my cultural capital and the level of risk in my choices. At the end of high school, I had no idea what to do: engineering and medicine were presented as the only acceptable paths, and on top of that, I had a wide range of interests.
I started a degree in industrial engineering – two weeks in, I was already disgusted with the environment. I enrolled in Management at the University of Salerno the day before the registration deadline: the most mainstream choice I could make felt rebellious to me. The truth is, I initially hated Management too, but I grew passionate about it, feeling ignorant about the subject, but at the same time, strangely suited to it. I’m a passionate person, and that could have happened with pretty much any field of study.
I became particularly interested in marketing, for its anthropological and sociological aspects, and Bocconi offered an MSc in Marketing Management. Getting in felt out of reach, and the moment I read about my admission while sitting in the public library in Caserta remains one of the most exciting moments of my life.
Ridhi: And fashion, where did that come from? Did you always incline toward working in the industry, or did it click later?
Luigi Parla: My current obsession with fashion started in an unusual way. I’ve always used clothing as a form of expression and to belong to a community – in my teens, I was the stereotypical wannabe skater/tumblr-boy, obsessed with pop-punk bands who wished to put a ring on Avril Lavigne’s finger, but I never imagined I’d work in fashion; in fact, I was always pretty anti-fashion.
I started approaching fashion in a strongly critical way with my bachelor’s dissertation, which focused on the circular economy in the fashion sector to identify solutions for one of the most polluting industries on the planet. During my research, I came into contact with activist personalities like Vivienne Westwood, Alexander McQueen and Rei Kawakubo, who became the foundation of my fashion knowledge. Brand activism was also the topic of my master’s dissertation.
It’s really a social theme – the desire to show that fashion, like art, doesn’t belong to an elite, or rather, doesn’t belong to the rich – that drove my decision to work in the industry: no one should feel ashamed or unwelcome in an art gallery or a fashion boutique – fashion culture is for everyone (even if buying fashion is not).
Ridhi: Looking back at your Bocconi journey, do you recall any specific moments, courses, or projects that genuinely prepared you for the work you do now?
Luigi Parla: No single course really prepared me in a strict sense for the jobs I’ve done, but each one contributed organically to my mindset, building the foundations that allow me to pick up any task more easily and to critically assess business decisions (many of which you may have already seen in worst-practice case studies in class).
The level of preparation provided by Bocconi is excellent – I don’t think there’s a risk of feeling underprepared. It’s more likely that you’ll feel frustrated because your fresh knowledge, especially in larger corporate contexts, can’t initially be fully applied due to company hierarchies. Being patient and waiting for your moment is extremely hard (and not necessarily something you have to do). The only thing I wish I’d had more visibility on is the variety of careers available within the industry. Personally, I would have found seminars presenting the top-line structure of some leading companies extremely useful, inviting representatives from each role to talk about their own experience and responsibilities. I’ve spent countless hours scrolling through LinkedIn profiles to understand what each professional actually does in a given fashion company and which role would suit me best. The work of connecting students with professionals, carried out by student associations, is incredibly useful in this regard.
Ridhi: Bocconi pushes a lot of field projects. How important were hands-on experiences compared to classroom learning? Did any project directly influence your career direction or open a door?
Luigi Parla: Field projects are a real added value at Bocconi, and I consider their importance on par with theoretical study, which remains fundamental. Getting the chance to apply theoretical knowledge to practical cases from real, prominent companies is a true privilege. All projects, though none in particular, helped me develop a clearer idea of what I did and didn’t want to do in my career. The same companies you work with on field projects are generally also the main recruiters of Bocconi students, and your contact there can be a useful connection if you’re interested in the company (which was never the case for me).
Ridhi: A lot of Bocconi students say they want to work in “fashion and luxury,” but don’t know what that actually means day-to-day. You’ve worked in merchandising (Giorgio Armani), brand management (Kering), and account management (Farfetch). Can you help us distinguish these roles in simple terms?
Luigi Parla: The first distinction to make is the type of company I’ve worked in, since the three roles exist in different kinds of companies: Armani is a fashion brand; Kering Eyewear is a company that designs, develops, and distributes eyewear for the Kering Houses and also owns brands (Maui Jim and Lindberg); Farfetch is a marketplace where partner boutiques and brands can upload and sell their products in exchange for a commercial discount.
I’ll try to hyper-simplify the three roles in three sentences. The Collection Merchandiser is a role that exists in (almost) every fashion house and aims to define a brand’s product assortment to maximise its commercial potential and ensure alignment with the desired positioning.
The Brand Manager is a role that – at least as I performed it – adds to Collection Merchandising the management of the brand’s Marketing Strategy, liaising between different marketing functions (Trade Marketing, Media, Social, PR…).The Account Manager is a sales role: you’re assigned clients (in Farfetch’s case, partner boutiques, multi-brand stores), and your goal is to maximise sales (for Farfetch, the stock obtained from partner boutiques and the related commercial discount)
Ridhi: Merchandising, if you had to define it, what is it really? Is it more creative, analytical, or both, and why?
Luigi Parla: It’s important to distinguish between a Collection Merchandiser and a Retail Merchandiser.
The main goal of a Collection Merchandiser is to define a brand’s product assortment, and the primary tool for this is the merchandising brief for the design team – a deck outlining the characteristics the collection should have (categories, lines, number of styles and SKUs, pricing, target consumer…). The brief is created based on in-depth internal analysis (performance of previous collections and insights from the Sales team) and external analysis (market research, benchmarking, trend hunting…). Presenting the merchandising brief kicks off the product development process, which the merchandiser follows from start to finish.
A Retail Merchandiser, on the other hand, is primarily responsible for defining and implementing the brand’s buying strategy, ensuring that each owned boutique is stocked with the right product selection (given the geographic area and target audience) and the right inventory to maximise sales.
Both roles are mainly analytical, but Collection Merchandising in particular includes a creative component in interpreting the brand’s DNA and translating it into a collection structure.
Ridhi: Fashion marketing/ luxury brand management has become a bit of a “buzzword” among younger generations. In reality, what does the day-to-day work of a Brand Manager involve?
Luigi Parla: The role is very common in sectors like beauty and eyewear, and is essentially a hybrid between Collection Merchandising and Marketing Management. A Brand Manager is responsible, on one hand, for defining the product strategy, and on the other, for coordinating the various marketing functions (PR, Media, Social, Trade) to create and execute the Marketing Plan. In eyewear and beauty, the marketing side of the role carries different weight depending on the brand: if you work on licensed brands (e.g., Gucci Eyewear at Kering Eyewear) marketing is largely driven by the fashion house’s strategy for the eyewear/beauty category; for owned brands (e.g., Oakley at Luxottica) the Brand Manager has much more influence and freedom over the marketing strategy.
In pure fashion, the job title Brand Manager is less common: hybrid Brand Manager roles like the one described above typically exist in mid-sized companies; in larger companies, Collection Merchandising and Marketing Management are generally separate roles, sometimes only merging at Director or C-level (e.g., Chief Merchandising & Marketing Officers).
Additionally, horizontal Marketing Management roles with responsibility for coordinating the marketing strategy are rare at entry-level: only a few companies have Junior Marketing Manager/Specialist positions (sometimes also called Junior Brand Manager/Specialist); often the path to becoming a Marketing Manager starts from more vertical roles in PR, Media, Social, or Trade Marketing.
(For context: Brand management exists in companies like Coca-Cola because marketing teams often act as creative directors. In most fashion houses, creative direction is not owned by marketing. That said, being a strong business person can still help you make better creative decisions because you understand what will work commercially and culturally.)
Ridhi: Now at Farfetch, you’re in account management, managing partner boutiques and guiding their development on the platform. This feels a lot more strategic (and honestly, intriguing). What made you switch, and what’s the biggest difference in how you work and think day-to-day?
Luigi Parla: Yes, after four years in Merchandising/Marketing roles, in June 2025, I moved into a sales role at Farfetch in the Porto office.
The reasons were multiple: the need for international experience, the desire to reconnect with categories beyond eyewear and the curiosity to gain experience in Sales, a function that gives you exposure to a more hands-on side of the industry while providing skills that are useful both in your career and beyond (relationship management, persuasion, negotiation…).
The main difference in the day-to-day compared to my previous role is the people I interact with, who are no longer primarily internal but mostly external – partners/clients, who are multi-brand fashion retailers. This particularly affects communication style: vocabulary, tone, analysis and reporting all need to be adapted depending on the type of partner contact, ranging from a data-driven, hyper-corporate General Manager to an older owner who can’t read an Excel file and can’t stand English terms – flexibility and empathy are crucial skills.
The Sales role at Farfetch is also unique compared to typical fashion brand sales roles, since it’s a marketplace: the goal isn’t to sell more to your accounts, but to get the best product selection from them under the best commercial terms, so both Farfetch and the partner grow sustainably. The cool thing about the role is the unique insight into the industry it provides: a view from inside the boutique system, fashion retail, its commercial dynamics, and the different buying, pricing and distribution strategies each partner uses.
Ridhi: If you had to map the fashion industry into major career tracks (5 to 7), what would they be? And for each one, what type of person thrives there?
Luigi Parla: Focusing on careers within fashion brands for people with an academic background in economics, you can roughly identify five major paths:
- Merchandising, ideal for analytical people with strong product sensitivity and an aesthetic sense;
- Marketing, for those who balance creativity and data analysis, with a good understanding of the socio-cultural context, trends, consumer clusters, and communities;
- Business Development (handling long-term growth strategies, M&A, brand expansions…), suited for entrepreneurial-minded people with long-term strategic vision and the ability to see the big picture;
- Commercial/Sales, ideal for persuasive, empathetic personalities, skilled in negotiation and highly results-oriented;
- Finance, for people I don’t like – joking (maybe) – but the target is self-explanatory.
Ridhi: A question on behalf of everyone who dreams of working in fashion. Do you actually get to go to Fashion Week? Is it truly glamorous? Do you travel for work? What’s the reality vs the Instagram version?
Luigi Parla: Working in fashion is obviously highly idealised, but in my opinion, it can be truly glamorous. The target of Fashion Weeks – which includes attending shows, visiting showrooms, and going to various cocktail parties and PR events – is mainly the press, celebrities, KOLs, and buyers from multi-brand stores.
When you work at a fashion brand, especially in commercial roles, just being able to attend the show of the brand you work for is already an achievement. Over the years, your personal network has allowed you to access more events.
As for work trips, in my case (excluding off-sites for team building and company parties), they were generally no more than four per year, though for PR and Sales roles, the opportunities are definitely higher. That said, I’ve had my share of exclusive experiences. Being able to say I’ve met Mr Armani in person, attended one of his shows, and worked on Gucci during Alessandro Michele’s creative direction was truly exciting for me. And the stays in luxury hotels, Michelin-star catering, and attending private sales – while perhaps more superficial perks – were definitely appreciated.
Ridhi: How intense is it really? The Devil Wears Prada is everyone’s reference point. Do you think there’s truth to the stereotypes of the industry being cutthroat, hierarchical, or demanding? And how much does culture vary across companies?
Luigi Parla: It all depends on the company, the team, the manager, and the position – generalising is impossible. I believe the fashion industry is among the sectors with the widest spectrum of company cultures, given the variety of factors that can influence it. On top of the usual geographic and size factors, others come into play, such as the presence of creative directors, a dominant aesthetic or dress code, and the variety of business models and brand positioning (luxury heritage brands, avant-garde fashion brands, digitally-led businesses, fast fashion – just to name a few).
The reality depicted in The Devil Wears Prada is extremely exaggerated, but similar toxic dynamics can appear in some workplaces – especially in small, loosely structured, creatively-led companies and in roles with strong interaction with press and design. In more structured environments, particularly within large conglomerates like Kering or LVMH, these cases are rarer due to more formalised processes and greater protections, though exceptions exist. Large family-run companies can fall somewhere in between. I’m excluding labour management from this discussion (recent news cases speak for themselves).
That said, today we have the tools to get a rough idea of company culture and protect ourselves, thanks to websites like Reddit, Indeed, and Glassdoor. An extra tip for navigating company culture in a healthy way is to choose, as much as possible, brands whose target audience you could belong to yourself – being aligned with the target not only makes it easier to understand them and devise strategies to reach them, but can also be personally rewarding in terms of cultural and aesthetic development.
Ridhi: What was your first fashion or luxury-related experience (internship, project, part- time, anything)? How did you get it, and what was it like? Did you find it difficult at the start?
Luigi Parla: Excluding dissertations and personal research, my first practical contact with the fashion industry was my internship at Armani. I managed to get it through hard work, study, patience, support from my family, and the right amount of luck.
A high GPA in my bachelor’s and a good test score allowed me to get into Bocconi, and Bocconi gave me the network to access my first internships (unpaid or poorly paid). It took over a year from my first attempt to get an internship in the fashion sector to actually landing one – even my application to the student association I had applied for was rejected (that was brutal).
At first, I focused on internships in sectors and/or positions that could in some way connect to the industry (fashion) and thus be marketable. After two internships in beauty and entertainment, I tried again with massive applications to fashion companies, always via the Bocconi portal. Armani called me for a first interview, and I managed to get through the selection process.
The beginning was ambivalent: on one hand, there was the excitement and gratitude of joining a company you had only admired in books and magazines until the day before; on the other hand, the psychological weight of the intern label and the typical disillusionment that comes at the start of a partly idealised career.
Ridhi: If you could redo your early internships, what would you optimise for (brand name, learning, manager, location, function, or network)? And if someone is about to start their first fashion internship tomorrow, what are three things they should do in the first two weeks?
Luigi Parla: The first question assumes a possibility of choice that, in reality, especially at the beginning, often doesn’t really exist. That said, the answer depends on your goal.
If you’re aiming for structured international environments, I would prioritise function and brand name (not just in terms of prestige but also personal alignment with the brand’s positioning) in your first internships. Understanding from the start which function you want to build your path in is a huge advantage in a market that demands increasingly specialised profiles. At the same time, the brand itself carries objective weight in the very first months of your career: it’s seen as a certificate of quality, of value/aesthetic fit, and it opens doors. Of course, it doesn’t replace skills, but it accelerates their recognition.
Once function and brand are secured, I would shift the focus to learning and managers, who in the medium-to-long term are the real priority for career development. I see networking as a consequence of work and private life. I base location choices mainly on personal life, though in the fashion industry, this is automatically somewhat limited.
And about the three things to do in the first two weeks of an internship: ask questions and try to absorb as much knowledge as possible from every colleague, not just your manager (people are happy to help); don’t be afraid to give your perspective and proactive input – be humble but don’t undersell yourself; be kind to yourself, especially when you make mistakes.
Ridhi: Last question, what is one thing you’d tell your 22-year-old self if you could?
Luigi Parla: Keep studying relentlessly – and I’m not just talking about university – don’t be afraid to start conversations with strangers, read Ithaca by Constantine P. Cavafy, be cringe and remember to have fun.
For Luigi, the future isn’t a fixed title; it’s a direction. He talks about eventually becoming a Chief Merchandising or Marketing Officer one day, but only in a brand he truly resonates with, one that actually matches his values.
He also lights up while he talks about teaching. Luigi speaks about knowledge the way some people speak of home: something you build, protect, and keep coming back to. Corporate life, for all its rewards, can make it hard to keep learning in ways that feel genuinely expansive. Teaching would be a way for him to stay close to younger generations, to keep growing while also passing on what he’s figured out along the way.
Luigi also speaks about how overused the terms “cool” and “Gen Z” are among C-levels, but how can they really know what that means? And what is “cool” and “Gen Z” anyway, if not a mere hypersimplification? He doesn’t want to lose touch with how younger people communicate. He believes it’s essential to stay present and, more importantly, to keep listening.
Fashion, more than almost any other industry, runs on that evolution: understanding what younger people care about, how they communicate, where culture is moving before it becomes a real trend. That’s what drives the cities: New York, London, Paris, Milan, Tokyo, Copenhagen. Places where things arrive first, where you can feel a shift before it has a name. Being where trends originate is a privilege, he says, and staying close to that current is part of what keeps him awake.
From Luigi’s point of view, that same instinct is what makes leadership real: the kind that stays curious, stays present, and stays connected to the world as it changes.
And underneath all of it, when you strip away the roles, the companies, the career frameworks, the strategy and the noise, Luigi believes life is simple. Life is about love. Trust. The people you meet along the way. And most importantly, having fun.
By Ridhi Collin
