Fashion Link Milano Presents "The Buyer Journey": Research Shows Buyers Now Arrive at Fairs with Decisions Already Under Way

Fashion Link Milano announced the key insights to emerge from The Buyer Journey , a discussion held on September 8, 2026 at the ADI Design Museum in Milan that brought together its five trade fairs — MICAM Milano, Milano Fashion&Jewels, MIPEL, TheOneMilano and SIMAC Tanning Tech — with industry professionals to examine how fashion buying processes are changing and how the role of the trade fair is evolving. The five events together represent a total of 1,848 brands .

The discussion was led by Orietta Pelizzari, Global Trend Researcher , together with Chiara Allegra Moretti , independent buyer, and Federico Galli, storyteller . A central finding was that today's buyer arrives at the fair having already completed a significant part of their work — researching, comparing, selecting and building an agenda of contacts and products — so that the visit is no longer simply a moment of discovery, but one stage in a decision-making process that begins before the fair and continues afterwards through relationships with companies, brands, suppliers and partners.

THE GEOPOLITICS OF OPINION: TASTE NO LONGER HAS AN AGE Orietta Pelizzari opened the discussion with the concept of the "geopolitics of opinion" : taste is no longer determined by a single generation or a single actor, but emerges from the interaction between consumers, buyers, brands and communities. One figure clearly captures this shift: according to NIQ / World Data Lab (2025) , Gen X currently accounts for $15.2 trillion in global spending, 40% more than Gen Z . But the question is not only who spends the most. It is, above all, who influences whom . Research into multigenerational marketing shows increasingly fluid boundaries between generations: influence over taste can move in both directions, while consumers are increasingly defined by their values and behaviours rather than by their age. For brands and retailers, this means moving beyond rigid segmentation and developing strategies capable of engaging multiple generations simultaneously. For the fashion system, this changes the way markets need to be read: different generations can coexist within the same market, the same household and even the same buying process, researching and making decisions according to different rationales. Competition therefore shifts from conquering a market to becoming relevant within the conversation that shapes its taste .

The insights presented by Pelizzari build on the research journey already initiated with Curator Buyer , developed from observations gathered directly from buyer teams. They portray a buyer increasingly positioned between curator and entrepreneur : a professional called upon to interpret trends, consumers, markets, margins and the identity of a point of sale, transforming an ever-growing volume of information into targeted decisions.

A MORE PREPARED BUYER, A MORE DISTINCTIVE RETAIL LANDSCAPE Product research is now a continuous process in which fairs, showrooms and direct relationships coexist with digital platforms, social media and sales data. The greater availability of information therefore makes the ability to filter, interpret and verify increasingly important. The point of sale is also taking on a more active role. Private labels, assortments built for specific audiences and products developed for particular locations are turning retail into a project with its own identity. The question is no longer simply which product to buy, but which product is right for that store, that customer and that market . Within this process, the physical dimension of the fair retains a distinctive value: seeing and assessing products, engaging directly with entrepreneurs and supp...