Gruppo Montenegro Special Award

The 2022 call for participants inaugurates new partnerships with a number of prestigious brands that are working with the Foundation to support beauty and talent. Among these is an exceptional partner: Gruppo Montenegro, ‘promoter of Beauty’, which has decided to create a special prize, the ‘Human Spirit’ prize, in collaboration with Fondazione Italia Patria della Bellezza. This prize is dedicated to a project from among all the participants which, in addition to satisfying the seven criteria described in the call's regulations, best represents the all-Italian ability to promote sharing and aggregation.

‘Human Spirit for us means focusing on the values of being together, friendship and conviviality, in an authentic way,’ comments Cristina Danelatos, Director HR & Digital Innovation Montenegro Group. ‘Values that have always belonged to us. Our award wants to promote a ‘collective togetherness’, thanks to the enhancement of the artistic and cultural heritage of our country, where beauty is aesthetic sense but also culture, territory and technological avant-garde.’

Gruppo Montenegro has chosen Una Scuola, un Lavoro. Percorsi di Eccellenza presented by the Fondazione Cologni dei Mestieri d'Arte. The project promotes the insertion of young talents into the world of artistic craftsmanship throughout Italy through ad hoc classroom training courses followed by six-month paid internships in a workshop under the guidance of an experienced master craftsman. The aim of the project is in fact to prevent the disappearance of traditional and typical local artistic crafts and know-how, preserving their socio-economic and cultural value. This type of approach also has the merit of facilitating the professional choices of young talents by offering them the opportunity to train alongside experienced craftsmen and thus pick up the baton of their work.

‘The artistic trades are a competitive advantage for the Made in Italy of excellence, and the master craftsmen are our living treasures: it is only thanks to them that it is possible, every day, to create exciting goods that make the world dream,’ emphasises Alberto Cavalli, General Manager Fondazione Cologni dei Mestieri d'Arte. ‘The loss of the know-how of our masters of art, which today more than ever is a real threat, would be socially, economically and culturally damaging for Italian excellence’.