By Noran Morsi
Marco Semeghini is a marketing manager with significant experience in the industry of fashion, with a focus on menswear. After graduating with a Master’s in Business Administration at Bocconi University in Milan, he started his career in the retail sector, covering the role of buyer for La Rinascente, the leading Italian high-range department store chain. Later on, he moved to the luxury sector, first at Gucci, where he started as a menswear buyer for direct stores, and then was promoted to worldwide menswear merchandising manager, subsequently at Tom Ford, where he played a key role in the brand startup phase, and was appointed head of merchandising.
Patricia Lurati defended her PhD thesis on “Orientalism and Exotic Animals in 14th and 15th century Florence” at the University of Zurich. She earned her degree in art history at the University of Siena and her M.A. in History of Fashion at the University of Florence. Patricia is the recipient of numerous Swiss research grants and her work focuses mainly on the period of the Italian Renaissance.
Semeghini and Lurati are professors at NYU Florence who teach the courses of the Gallatin Program in Global Fashion. They met with Gallatin Global Graduate Student Worker Noran Morsi to share their experiences teaching in Florence and about NYU Florence programs and opportunities for Gallatin students.
Noran Morsi: Would you be able to share a little bit about your experience as academics and what led you to become fashion professors at NYU Florence?
Marco Semeghini: I’m not an Academic, and this was a precise request from the university because I teach a course about fashion business. NYU New York asked NYU Florence to set up a course made by someone working in the industry, and that someone happened to be me nine years ago. I had spent most of my life in the fashion industry, I had a personal passion for fashion since I was young, many years ago. I managed to find roles that were a compromise between my economics background and my personal passion. I’ve spent most of my time in the fashion industry with different roles related to branding, brand management, buying. I was a buyer for department stores for a famous luxury brand in Italy. Then became a product manager for the same brand. At a certain point when NYU asked me to set up this course, I found it was time to quit the industry.
NM: What’s the course called?
MS: It’s called Global Fashion Industry, Italy, because it’s supposed to mirror two courses. One in New York, which is Global Industry, and one was a Global fashion industry of the UK. It’s a course for students that might have taken one or both of the other courses. There’s a special focus on Italy and in Italy and Italian craftsmanship. Partially it’s global and partially it’s local.
Patricia Lurati: My course is the History of Italian Fashion. I am an art historian. I did my degree and my PhD in art history. My master’s was on Renaissance fashion. For many years I did art history research. I worked for a publisher organizing an exhibition, and then in 2018 I was creating an exhibition on contemporary fashion for the Pitti galleries in Florence. And at the same time there was a call from NYU for a course on the History of Fashion. And I applied and I started. I’ve not been teaching for such a long time as Marco.
MS: And our courses are complimentary in the sense that students are invited or even obliged to take them both, so they have an understanding of everything from history and culture to business.
NM: How has teaching at NYU Florence been?
PL: The first time I started teaching was for NYU, so I can’t compare it to different universities. I’m not Italian, I’m Swiss but I came to Italy to attend university and then I spent many years here, but I appreciate the way the American organization is compared to the Italian one, and the campus here, it’s amazing. It’s so beautiful. Every time I enter the campus, I feel good.
MS: I agree with Patricia that the campus is a major asset, of course for the students, they experience something that not even Florentine people do, it’s a dream. It’s a valley, facing Florence. It’s amazing with gardens, parks and beautiful scenery. But it’s not a minor asset for us too because it’s a relaxing environment.
NYU was the first university for me too. I also teach in another school now which is a private college for fashion, and I had from time to time tried to work for other universities, and I must say that none of them were up to the experience of NYU Florence, NYU is much more serious. It’s a real university abroad. The level of my colleagues is impressive. I’m always scared to compare myself with them. (He laughs). The atmosphere is relaxed. Relaxed doesn’t mean easy, but relaxed. Honestly, after nine years I can only say good things, not because you’re recording! (he laughs).
NM: How do you find that students acclimate to life in Florence?
PL: After Covid it’s not easy to answer that question because students seem to be a little bit more fragile. But Florence is a small city. It’s easy to go around and find things. Most of the students like it for one semester because it’s very relaxing compared to New York or Shanghai. They can take a breath and relax. There is this amazing campus and the city is small but they can travel a lot during the weekend, travel all Europe and they like that.
MS: We are in a very convenient location, geographically speaking, from Rome, Naples, but also there are airports all around the city and usually our students travel a lot and it’s quite cheap traveling from Florence to Paris or Amsterdam or Madrid or Barcelona.
NM: Can you describe your teaching philosophy? How do you choose what to teach and how do you create a course that is both engaging and meaningful?
PL: I have students that come from very different majors, so usually my course is on topics, each lesson is on one topic, which is quite general, so we have Renaissance fashion. Then usually we go to the Pitti galleries to see a selection of paintings and then have these topics like fashion and black color, and it goes from the Renaissance till today. I cover many, many centuries. I like to give them inputs. I show a lot of images, fashion, but also art images. I like my students to learn a little bit of the history of fashion, but most of all, I want them to use the tools that I’ve given them to start thinking out of the box. I hate when they learn the lesson by heart. They are completely free when they have to write papers to choose any image from the renaissance or a 2022 image, they are completely free. The only thing is that they have to be focused on the topic.
MS: I share with Patricia the idea to give an unconventional approach, not what you expect. Our courses are short so I tend to dedicate every single session to one subject in order to cover a lot, because the fashion industry is complex. It’s like a jigsaw and every week we define a piece and then at the end the picture is clear.
I give them a lot to read, but fashion texts become old immediately. The articles are old immediately. I tend to make my own lesson with PowerPoint, with different elements. Like Patricia, I hate boundaries, so every time I give them assignments, I tend to reduce the parameters to minimum and for them to be free to choose everything, and it depends on the class we have too, this time is amazing. They immediately understood the potential, this freedom. Sometimes we try to stimulate them in a different way. Sometimes we’re lucky. When you try to be interactive and informal or unconventional, who you have in front of you makes the real difference.
NM: Are there any final thoughts you’d like to add?
MS: In Florence one thing that is also different from American experiences, a lot of students who think that finding an internship is as easy here as it is in America. It’s not, for visa reasons but also it’s not in the culture of our companies. It’s not that they don’t take internships, but it’s not as common. Sometimes students hope that they can come here and also find an internship, and this is not impossible, but is not as easy as it is in the United States.
MS: Thank you for sharing that. It’ll be important for, for prospective students to know that as well, to go in with a realistic mindset