Introduction. Artisans between craft making in the workshop and industrial craftmanship

Abstract

An increasing number of marketing consultants and managers envisages that over the course of the XXI century there will be the revival of the artisan workshop as the workplace in which new forms of creativity will develop and new strategies will emerge to relaunch and revitalise the 'Made in italy' production. Hence the large numbers of debates and roundtables that have recently been organized all over in italy centred on artisan work and its future. Yet, commodities that are advertised as artisan-made (such as Grom icecream) raise confusion about the meaning of artisan-made goods. Artisan production must meet at least two requirements: it is mainly crafted in one single place and in a small scale workshop. What about then the wide range of luxorious semi-handcrafted goods by famous international brands? For these kinds of expensive merchandise some firms have glibly coined the term "industrial craftmanship".