The factory on show: at MICAM and MIPEL, shoes and bags are made in front of visitors

From 13 to 15 September 2026, in Hall 5 at Fiera Milano Rho. At the centre of the hall is M&M – The Hub, the space shared by MICAM and MIPEL, dedicated to training, innovation, trends and the new generation of brands. Inside it, M&M – The Factory & The Academy Hub returns: a live workshop where, over three days, three products are built in front of the fair visitors, with experienced technicians operating the machines and state-of-the-art technologies.

A space dedicated to the making stages of a leather goods item and a footwear product, giving buyers and visitors a concrete view of the skills, the technologies and the manufacturing processes behind Made in Italy.

The leather luggage tag starts from a piece of vegetable-tanned leather, cut with a precision cutting die: the two halves are stitched together on an automatic sewing machine, then finished with a ribbon screen-printed with the MICAM Milano and MIPEL logos and closed with an embroidered detail. Five hundred pieces will be made, gifted to visitors and personalised with their initials across the three days of the fair.

The Made in Italy sneaker is built using a distinctive “sneaker flex” construction, with an upper in reversed calf leather — the material traditionally used for unlined moccasins — and the logo embossed on the tongue using high-frequency welding.

The canvas and leather bag, inspired by the models traditionally used to carry wine bottles, is made to carry the sneaker home: a body in firm cotton-based canvas that holds the shape, base and shoulder strap in vegetable-tanned leather, a base that is stitched and turned, and a strap that adjusts in length through a metal pin system.

Behind the project are almost 30 material and technology companies, with Assomac and Simac Tanning Tech as partners. Also at work are machines with automatic vision systems and artificial intelligence, able to recognise materials and programme their own processing paths.

Project coordination and the educational direction are entrusted to Arsutoria, which runs the training side with a programme of workshops and seminars for schools and students.

For more information, click here.