Marketing may be evolving to cope with this cross-cultural christian shoes, but Italian design remains a much more ephemeral exercise according to Linda Loppa, head of the Polimoda school in Florence. “I think unconsciously we are affected by many different cultural influences but designers are affected more by the spirit of the moment than anything, by the ‘mood’ of the moment. How this is reinterpreted industrially and put into production is a successive stage and depends on the individual product… bodies are quite different from Japan to the US,” she said.

A close look at export figures reveals an interesting Christian Pumps of supply and demand across Italy’s textile and clothing trading partners. Overall, the apparel and textiles sector showed a 12.4% drop in orders in the first quarter of 2009 according to the country’s Federation of Textile and Fashion Enterprises. And while the deepening crisis was reflected in dropping exports to the US, Japan and Germany, Russia and Christian Sandals China both saw significant increases in demand. Rising affluence in these countries has created opportunity for Italian luxury brands, looking to sustain their business in the face of flattening local consumption. Yet this does not mean producers are custom-making to the cultural preferences they encounter overseas.

One example is the Fratelli Rossetti group, a Milanese producer of luxury footwear and leather accessories with 325 workers and annual sales of EUR70m (louboutin Shoes). The group announced plans in April 2009 to expand into mainland China and Hong Kong with 16 new store locations.