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Camera Moda Fashion Trust is an Italian non-profit philanthropic fashion organization established to support independent designers working within the Made in Italy system through financial assistance, strategic mentoring and one-to-one professional guidance. Founded in 2017 under the patronage of Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana, or CNMI, the Trust brings together fashion executives, entrepreneurs, investors, legal specialists, retailers and creative-industry figures around a shared purpose: helping promising independent labels turn creative potential into structured, enduring businesses. Rather than functioning simply as a prize-giving institution, it has developed a support network that addresses many of the practical areas on which a young fashion company depends, from merchandising and international growth to communications, intellectual property and multichannel strategy.
The Trust operates in close proximity to one of the central institutions of Italian fashion. Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana traces its history to 1958, when the Camera Sindacale della Moda Italiana was founded in Rome as a precursor to the present association. Today, CNMI remains a non-profit organization dedicated to coordinating, promoting and strengthening Italian fashion at home and internationally, with emerging talent among the areas to which it has devoted sustained attention.
Camera Moda Fashion Trust adds a distinctly philanthropic dimension to that ecosystem. Its own description emphasizes financial support alongside business mentoring and individual tutoring, with designers encouraged to think beyond the collection itself and consider the infrastructure needed to build a viable company. Internationalization, digital development, multichannel strategy, merchandising and intellectual-property protection are among the areas specifically identified by the organization. Its initiatives are sustained through voluntary contributions from a community of supporters, patrons and ambassadors.
The Trust’s current governance reflects that combination of institutional and private-industry expertise. Carlo Capasa, President of Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana, serves as Trustee. Umberta Gnutti Beretta and Warly Tomei are Co-Founders and Co-Chairs, while Sofia Barattieri Weinstein and Vania Miranda are also identified by the organization as co-founders. The wider advisory structure brings together figures from fashion, investment, retail, media and cultural organizations. Its Executive Board currently includes Gnutti Beretta, Tomei, Miranda, Beatrice Rossaro and Sara Sozzani Maino. Valeria Milanesi serves as Coordinator, alongside digital and creative consultant Sofia Sarandrea and communication and creativity adviser Paola Manfrin.
This structure is important because CMFT is conceived as more than an annual contest. It connects designers with people whose professional lives span the disciplines required to build a fashion business, creating a network around the recipient rather than treating financial support as an isolated intervention.
The formal Camera Moda Fashion Trust Grant began in 2020. According to CMFT’s current record, its editions have so far allocated 22 grants across 17 individual brands: ACT N°1, ANDREĀDAMO, Blazé Milano, Coliac, Cormio, Florania, Francesco Murano, Institution, Lessico Familiare, Lorenzo Seghezzi, Marcello Pipitone, Materia, Moja Rowa, Niccolò Pasqualetti, Setchu, Victor Hart and Vitelli. Several labels have received support in more than one edition, accounting for the difference between the number of grants and the number of distinct brands.
Eligibility is intentionally focused on independent companies that already possess a degree of operating history. Current rules state that applicants should have been in business for more than two years, operate through a small or private company rather than apply simply as an individual or self-employed person, and be based in Italy. The designer must retain the required degree of ownership or management control without an outside industrial or financial majority shareholder controlling the business. At least 80 per cent of the collection must be made in Italy.
Applications are open to all-gender ready-to-wear and specified accessory categories: jewellery, bags and footwear. The application process goes well beyond a portfolio review. Candidates provide a designer biography, company registration information, lookbooks for their two most recent collections, press material, financial summaries, cash-flow information and two years of accounts. They must also submit a written plan of at least 500 words explaining how the financial support would be used on a project delivered within the twelve months following the award.
The assessment reflects the Trust’s combination of creativity and business development. Applicants are judged equally on creative merit, their proposed use of funding, the mentoring support they require and the accuracy of the financial information submitted. CMFT also states that sustainability, social impact, diversity and inclusion form part of its considerations.
The evolution of the Grant provides a useful picture of how the initiative has developed. In 2020, ACT N°1, Blazé Milano, and Coliac became the first three brands selected for tailored support, including both funding and professional guidance.
The 2022 edition supported ACT N°1 again, alongside Cormio and Vitelli. In 2023, the program moved into a more clearly structured financial format. Niccolò Pasqualetti, Marcello Pipitone and Setchu received €40,000 grants, while Florania, founded by Flora Rabitti, received a separate €15,000 Design for Change award supported by MAX&Co.
Setchu’s inclusion proved particularly notable within the designer’s broader international trajectory. Its founder, Satoshi Kuwata, went on to win the 2023 LVMH Prize for Young Fashion Designers, placing a CMFT-supported name at the centre of one of fashion’s most closely watched global talent programs.
The scale increased again in 2024. ANDREĀDAMO, Francesco Murano, Lorenzo Seghezzi and Niccolò Pasqualetti were each awarded €50,000, accompanied by strategic consulting and mentoring. MAX&Co. separately selected Victor Hart for its Design for Change initiative, providing a €20,000 award and an opportunity to work with the brand’s design team.
In 2025, Lessico Familiare, Institution, Francesco Murano and Moja Rowa were selected from approximately 80 applicants and ten finalists. Each received €50,000 together with strategic mentoring. The group illustrated the breadth of contemporary independent design in Italy: Lessico Familiare works with a language of reconstruction and domestic textile memory; Francesco Murano has developed a sculptural approach to tailoring and draping; Institution places craft and material culture at the centre of its practice; and Moja Rowa approaches fashion through narrative-led, deliberately paced collections.
The sixth edition marked another significant step in the Grant’s development. From approximately 80 applications, eleven finalists reached the final stage. ACT N°1, Institution and Materia were ultimately selected, with €70,000 awarded to each brand, alongside personalized mentoring from industry experts. The awards were presented in Milan in May 2026.
ACT N°1, founded in 2016 by Chinese-Italian designer Luca Lin, has built its identity around multicultural dialogue and experimentation with construction. Tailoring is often reconsidered through layering, unusual cuts, and shifting volumes, while the broader creative language draws on Lin’s personal history and the meeting of different cultural perspectives. The label had already been part of the Trust’s earliest grant generation, making its 2026 selection another chapter in a relationship extending across several stages of the company’s growth.
Institution, created by Galib Gassanof, approaches fashion through cultural memory, craft and community. CMFT describes the brand as working largely with natural materials, including silk, cotton, wool, and leather sourced from luxury production remnants. Traditional carpet-weaving practices are reinterpreted within its clothing, including work undertaken with women artisans connected to Gassanof’s Azerbaijani-Georgian heritage. The institution had also received a grant in 2025, making 2026 its second consecutive year among the recipients.
Materia introduces another dimension to the Trust’s community. Founded by Francesco Saverio Matera, the project brings adaptive design into a contemporary fashion context, developing garments intended to make dressing more intuitive and accessible while retaining a strong visual identity. Ergonomic construction and functional solutions are integral to its design language. The project originated in Matera’s work at IED Milano before developing into an independent brand, and its 2026 award placed inclusive design prominently within the year’s winning group.
Money is only one component of the CMFT model. Grant recipients enter a year-long program of pro-bono mentoring that addresses the realities of running an independent label. The Trust’s current mentor network brings together specialists in human resources, wholesale, business strategy, communications, finance, law, intellectual property, distribution, ESG, heritage management and public speaking.
Among them are Sterling International partner Cristina Baruzzi, whose career has included senior roles at Prada and Valentino; Camera Buyer Italia chairman Maura Basili; MDC Showroom founder Matteo Del Cherico; Underscore District co-founder and CEO Edoardo Di Luzio; Next Agency founder Leila Palermo; Deloitte Legal fashion-law specialist Ida Palombella; 247 Global founder and CEO Giacomo Piazza; corporate and M&A lawyer Milena Prisco; Emilio Pucci Heritage president Laudomia Pucci; and communication and public-speaking coach Morena Rozzi. The breadth of this group illustrates why the mentoring element matters: an independent fashion house may require expertise in hiring, financing, contracts, wholesale, brand positioning and communication almost simultaneously.
CMFT has also experimented with collaborations that place emerging designers in contexts beyond the conventional runway. One of the clearest examples has been its relationship with Udinese Calcio and technical partner Macron.
The collaboration began in 2023 with an agreement that gave a selected emerging designer the opportunity to develop Udinese’s third football kit. Marcello Pipitone created the first edition. Florania’s Flora Rabitti followed with the 2024/25 third kit, produced using environmentally focused materials, while Domenico Orefice was chosen for the 2025/26 season. What began as a two-year project therefore developed into a continuing relationship between fashion and professional sport.
CMFT’s ability to respond to changing circumstances was also visible in 2020. Together with CNMI, it launched #TogetherForTomorrow, a fundraising and support initiative for a new generation of Made in Italy designers and small fashion businesses during the disruption created by the COVID-19 pandemic. Alongside fundraising, the Trust organized access to expert webinars, while collaborations such as a project with Westwing created additional digital visibility and commercial opportunities for selected young labels.
That same philosophy of early intervention has intersected with CNMI’s educational work. At Milano Moda Graduate 2020, Camera Moda Fashion Trust provided the monetary support attached to the CNMI Fashion Award won by Istituto Modartech graduate Giulia Barbieri, illustrating how the wider ecosystem can connect education with the first stages of professional development.
What distinguishes Camera Moda Fashion Trust within the Italian fashion landscape is the continuity of its approach. It does not treat creative recognition as the end point. The financial grant is connected to mentoring; mentoring is linked to professional networks; and those networks can lead into retail, communications, legal knowledge, international distribution and unexpected collaborations.
Its development from the first formal Grant recipients in 2020 to the €70,000 awards of 2026 also demonstrates an expanding level of commitment to independent fashion businesses. The names supported along the way range from ACT N°1 and Setchu to Niccolò Pasqualetti, Francesco Murano, Institution, Lessico Familiare and Materia, each representing a different interpretation of what contemporary Made in Italy can become.
In that sense, Camera Moda Fashion Trust occupies an important position between fashion’s creative and commercial worlds. It recognizes that a distinctive collection may begin with one designer’s imagination, but a lasting fashion house requires considerably more: financial planning, manufacturing relationships, legal protection, distribution knowledge, communication, leadership and a community prepared to share experience. By bringing those elements together, the Trust has created a philanthropic framework through which emerging designers can develop not simply as talents to watch, but as businesses capable of contributing to the next chapter of Italian fashion.
ANSA. (2024, May 10). Annunciati i beneficiari del CNMI Fashion Trust Grant. ANSA article
Bellini, E. P. (2026, May 29). CNMI Fashion Trust Grant 2026: I vincitori sono Act N.1, Institution e Materia. Vogue Italia. Vogue Italia article
Camera Moda Fashion Trust. (n.d.). About. Retrieved July 24, 2026. Camera Moda Fashion Trust — About
Camera Moda Fashion Trust. (n.d.). Community. Retrieved July 24, 2026. Camera Moda Fashion Trust — Community
Camera Moda Fashion Trust. (n.d.). Grant. Retrieved July 24, 2026. Camera Moda Fashion Trust — Grant
Camera Moda Fashion Trust. (2023). Camera Moda Fashion Trust presents the new edition of the CNMI Fashion Trust Grant 2023. Official 2023 grant release
Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana. (n.d.). Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana. Retrieved July 24, 2026. CNMI history and institutional profile
Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana. (2020, April 15). #TogetherForTomorrow. CNMI — Together for Tomorrow
IED – Istituto Europeo di Design. (2026, June 5). From IED thesis to the Camera Moda Fashion Trust. IED article on Materia
Macron. (2024, September 17). Udinese’s 2024/25 third kit, produced by Macron in collaboration with Camera Moda Fashion Trust, presented at Milan Fashion Week. Macron article
Modem. (2025). Winners of Camera Moda Fashion Trust’s 2025 grants. Modem article
Udinese Calcio. (2023). Udinese’s new third kit unveiled. Udinese Calcio — 2023 collaboration
Udinese Calcio. (2025, September 25). Udinese Calcio and Macron, in collaboration with Camera Moda Fashion Trust, unveil the 2025/26 third kit at Milan Fashion Week. Udinese Calcio — 2025/26 collaboration
Vogue Italia. (2020, February 7). Camera Moda Fashion Trust. Vogue Italia — Camera Moda Fashion Trust
Vogue Italia. (2020, July 14). Camera Moda Fashion Trust e Westwing supportano i creativi di nuova generazione. Vogue Italia — Together for Tomorrow collaboration
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