2Link

The name of a chain of trend-setting boutiques. Behind it is the aesthetic and commercial supervision of Alberto Bellotti. In 1998, the first retail outlet was founded in Cantù (near Como), with a line of products that was a mix of home furnishings and design (80 percent) and fashion. Two years later, the company set up its first franchised store in Siena and the store in Milan in the Largo La Foppa, marking a decided shift in the product mix toward the fashion sector. In 2001, 2Link opened a store in Como in the Via Olginati and Bellotti’s product mix moved almost entirely away from design and toward finding new designers and fashion trends in the segment of medium-high to upscale fashion. In 2003, he opened another Milanese store in Via Solferino 45. In brief, a strong period of growth in the context of a “strong consumer abandonment of certain types of products, especially in the fashion sector,” as Bellotti recalled. “Ready-to-wear fashion was created to bring fashion to an increasingly broad market share, and it had rapidly risen to price points that were ‘not suitable’ for that purpose. It completely abandoned the real needs of the end consumer. Manufacturers and marketers have never really become ‘acquainted’ and have never learned to created the powerful synergies that are necessary in a period of ‘lean times.'” In the rapid consumer abandonment of fashion as fashion, a major role was also played by the social phenomenon of ‘vintage’ clothing, of ‘unhemmed’ items, of the ‘false poverty’ look which makes it unacceptable to show up at a party or a dinner ‘dressed in brand-new outfits.’ Only a few really ‘strong’ labels, with appropriate marketing and sales network, will survive, and there will be more room for small labels with a correct price-to-quality ratio.” The 2Link stores were designed by the architect Pillet.