1976-1992 Boston: The Formative Years

Geoffrey B. Small is a pioneer of avant-garde tailoring and the role of fashion as an art form. He began his career in 1976 working as a blue jeans salesclerk and then a display and visual merchandiser for the Gap Stores in Boston.

In 1979 and 1980 while still working at the Gap, he began taking night school classes to study design, and was able to enter become a two-time winner of the "America's Next Great Designer Awards" from over 34,000 competitors judged by Bill Blass, Calvin Klein, Geoffrey Beene, Bernadine Morris and Elsa Klensch in the largest student fashion designer competition in North America sponsored by the ILGWU (International Ladie's Garment Workers Union). He continued to enter competitions and went on to win numerous other international design awards for fashion and furniture design including the Grand Prize for the 1980 Zipp-In International Competition awarded to him by the Mayor of the City of New York Ed Koch and the Slide Fastener's Association of America, and the 1982 Arango International Award for Multipurpose Furniture design sponsored by Cassina Milan and Lammhulske Sweden. During this time, he received numerous invitations and offers to work as a designer in New York, but the more he saw of the industry there, the less he liked it.

His design competition awards allowed him to obtain scholarships and full tuitions at both the School of Fashion Design in Boston and the School of Management at Boston University, so he decided to stay in Boston to attend both programs. At the same time, inspired by a tiny article he found in the back of a 1978 L'Uomo Vogue Italian magazine interview with Giorgio Armani, the then almost unknown new designer in Milan, stating that a real designer "should know every process from front to back... from the weaving of the fabric, to the patterns, production and all the way to the retailing of the clothes in the stores" he decided to start a tiny "laboratory" business in the attic of his parent's house to learn everything about making clothes by himself, designing and learning by making clothes for his friends one-at-a-time. In 1981, he launched the GBS Grey Card Series in the attic of his parent's house as a special membership only made to order collection service primarily for the best-dressed retail store workers in Boston (many of whom were his friends). After winning the 1984 The Boston University Hinds Prize for Business Plans, from 1984-1987 he sold almost 1 million dollars worth of a single white shirt he designed from the GBS Grey Card Series (“the Ultimate Shirt”), from the house at 17 Norman Road in Newton, Massachussetts through the pages of American Vogue Magazine.

By 1991, Small had become Boston’s leading bespoke designer moving to the 129 Newbury Street Ateliers, designing the campaign suit of the Governor of Massachussetts and organizing the city’s largest designer industrial events including the "Boston Designer's Collective" and the "Buy Boston Design" campaign in collaboration with the City of Boston and the International Ladies Garment Worker's Union to help revive and promote the region's design, clothing and textile manufacturing industries.

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Before Geoffrey B. Small, American fashion designers were viewed solely as commercially successful and only showed their collections in New York, which was dominated by Polo Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, Donna Karan and Tommy Hilfiger, and prioritized large commercial concepts aimed at U.S. consumers exclusively. Tired of the myopic, solely domestic and creatively suffocating U.S. system, and fiercely inspired by creative pioneers Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto from Japan, Helmut Lang from Austria and Martin Margiela, Ann Demeulemeester, Dries Van Noten, Dirk Bikkembergs, Walter Van Beirondonck, Dirk Van Saen and Marina Yee from Belgium who preceded him, in October of 1992, Geoffrey B. Small decided to try to be the first American designer to try to establish an avant-garde international name in Paris and brought his first collection to Paris in a suitcase, where he was eventually invited to meet Pierre Bergé (the president of Yves Saint Laurent and head of the Chambre Syndicale des Couturiers) who hailed him in the pages of Women’s Wear Daily as "one of the only designers in America with true talent”. Then in 1993, along with Martin Margiela and Lamine Kouyaté of Xuly Bet, he pioneered the use of recycled design in fashion, now over 3 decades later, a major component of the worldwide fashion and textile industry.

In 1994, with the help of Mr. Bergé's recognition, Geoffrey B. Small became only the 3rd American designer in history to be officially recognized and listed by the Chambre Syndicale, France’s legendary governing body of fashion. He was also the first US-based designer to present avant-garde collections in Paris preceding a long wave of Americans who have followed him over the past three decades. Drawing upon 15 years of hand tailoring experience in Boston, Geoffrey B. Small's first Paris runway collection entitled “Typical American” held in a small room at the Hotel InterContinental (in respect to Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garcons from Japan-who had done the same for her first collection in Paris 13 years earlier) and based upon his home country's endemic culture of violence, class inequality, youth, street life and totally new first-int-the-world cutting edge recycled design techniques... stunned the industry. And the view that American designers could never be creative enough to compete and show in Paris at the global level was changed forever. By breaking the creative ceiling barrier in 1994, Geoffrey B.Small has paved the way for a whole new wave and acceptance of American designers who later came to Paris to show their collections instead of New York including Rick Owens, Jeremy Scott, Marc Jacobs, Tom Ford, Thom Brown, Virgil Abloh, Greg Lauren, the Olsen twins of The Row, Matthew Williams of Alyx, John Eliott, Reese Cooper, Rhude, Colm Dillane of Kid Super, Pharell Williams, Mike Amari, Henri Alexander Levi of ERD, Daniel Roseberry, Michael Rider, Jaden Smith, Willy Chavarria and many many others.

In 1995, Small introduced the world’s first recycled menswear collection in Paris and went on to become one of the leading designers for young men in Japan, the world's largest market for avant-garde fashion at the time.

During this period, Geoffrey B. Small pioneered and innovated a long list of recycle design techniques later adopted by hundreds of others over the past three decades.

FIRST IN THE INDUSTRY RECYCLE DESIGN TECHNIQUES INTRODUCED BY GBS IN PARIS:

-the use of inserts (1993),

-the 2-piece twinset (1993),

-themed recycle collections basedupon a particular concept or garment type or element (1993),

-inside-out (1994),

-metamorphosisizing (changing the original use of the garment into a different type eg. pant to vest), (1994),

-half & half (1994),

-tape bands (1996),

-mesh (1995)

-camouflage (1996),

-plastic (1996),

-metal (1994),

-electronic & computer components (1994),

-graffiti tagging (1995),

-painted leather (1994),

-painted jeans (1994),

-zippers (1993)

-the pinch seam (1993),

-the inside pinch seam (1993),

-inside exposed overlock seam (1996),

-laser and silkscreen prints on pants, jackets, button-down shirts, leather and knitwear (1998),

-chiffon over jersey (1996),

-holes (1996),

-skulls (1994),

-label on the outside (1993),

-intarsia stitching (1993),

-convertibles (2-in-1 or 3-in-1 garments that can be changed into bags, backpacks or different garments), (1998),

-slashed knitwear (1998),

-antique patches (1998),

-ergonomic cutting and stitching (1997),

-overdyeing (1997),

-denim and khaki (2000),

-refitting menswear to womenswear (1995),

-customizing repairs (1994),

…and the development of the industry's first comprehensive standards of resizing and production methods for recycled clothing.

Across 24 pioneering avant-garde collections presented in Paris from 1993 to 1999, GBS developed, introduced, produced and distributed the definitive work on pure recycle design and production, and forged a model for an entire industry that would later be called upcycling and other names. The ground-breaking GBS designs and radical concepts established the first American name in the Paris international avant-garde design circuit in history, and began to attract the interest and attention of the Italian industrial fashion production system's biggest players for its striking innovation, radical artistic energy, product detail, environmental & social benefits, and extraordinary pricing efficiencies and value.

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1999-2001: The licensing years and the re-start of GBS in Italy

IN 1999, after showing more collections in Paris than any other American-based designer in history, and producing and distributing over 30,000 handmade recycle pieces from his own independent company factory at 115 Kingston Street in Boston, Small entered into a licensing agreement to produce, finance and distribute his designs in Italy with a manufacturer in the Veneto region--the industrial powerhouse of the Italian global fashion and production industry.

The agreement worked poorly but allowed Small to get into the guts of the most powerful clothing and textile production system in the world and begin learning how to work in it. After losing almost everything with the licensing agreement, shortly after the events of 11 September 2001, Small decided to restart his own independent firm in Italy, with a focus on building the leading research and micro-production firm in the industry. In strictly limited edition runs for a small group of the best shops in the world, he started making his special clothes again by hand in the kitchen of an apartment on the Via dei Martiri, 13 in Cavarzere and continuing to present his unique and visionary prototype collections in Paris.

Slowly, he began to rebuild his company from scratch sewing the orders and prototypes himself and then expanding step-by-step, and promising himself never to lose his independence again.

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2004-2007: proof and evidence of directional research leadership-Area Paris and back-to-back radical design movements that lead the industry

Continously copied yet rarely credited, in September 2003, Small founded the Association Internationale des Createurs Independants (AICI) to serve the needs of independent designers at the international level at a critical moment in the industry and the AREA Paris independent designer shows which went on to introduce more than 57 independent designers from around the world with over 170 individual collection presentations in Paris at the highest levels including Alessio Zero's Layer-0, Masnada, Werkstatt Munchen, Marc Le Bihan, Jean Francois Mimilla, Josep Abril, Delle Cose, Rene Talmon L'Armee, FQR by Fabio Quaranta, Koshin Satoh, Absinthium, Orner, Riccardo Coppetta's iX Intuitive, Firma. Yiorgos Eleftheriades, Catherine Giacomini, Sebastien Meunier (relaunch), Y Preston, Manish Arora, Ioselliani AU-325, Ron Orb, The Imp of the Perverse by Giovanni Contradda, Zabo & Nathalie Chabilland's House of Done, Tatiana Lebedev's Futurware Lab, Elsa Esturgie, Anna Rouhonen, Maiami, Marcello Scunzani for Ivo Scunzani and many more.

In January 2004, Small launched the very first totally independent stand-alone AREA Paris show with 11 other independent designers on the 4th floor of the Espace Saint Martin, along with a radical new silhouette and collection of Napoleonic-era inspired clothing entitled 'Brumaire revisited".

By 2006, Geoffrey B. Small's Napoleon-influenced style was being followed all over the industry, and names such as John Galliano (Dior), Chanel, Gaultier, Balenciaga, Dior Homme, Comme des Garcons, Dolce & Gabbana, Undercover, and Yohji Yamamoto were all showing Napoleonic-period influenced looks and collections culminating in Small’s winning the MTV Germany Designerama Menswear Award, special GBS collections for Louis Vuitton Japan's Celux, and the photographing by Karl Lagerfeld in Paris of his “Ode to Toussaint Louverture” collection for Numero Homme magazine. So wide and deep has been the influence of Small's napoleonic collection work that even now decades later, designers in both the avant-garde and luxury sectors are continuiung to try to emulate and imitate the concepts and the looks more than ever.

Sick of being copied at such a mass level, in October 2006, Small set out to introduce a totally new direction for the industry once again with a radically different silhouette and approach to clothesmaking with his first medieval-research collection entitled “Back to the future.”

In January 2007, his controversial show "Classe Dirigeant,” (Ruling Class) banned by the Paris fashion establishment, went on to become a landmark fashion presentation for its radical designs and its unique and timely social-political message. "Heroes of Another Gender" examined women in power during dark times. And in July and October 2007, the "Schola" collections for spring 2008 warned on the growing dangers of illiteracy to the middle class and introduced the first designs at the Paris level specifically addressing global warming. Since then, Small's powerful medieval-inspired collections and their messages have influenced a growing sphere in fashion, as medieval and gothic looks appeared more and more in other designer's collections and has become a huge commercial norm in itself.

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In 2007, Geoffrey B.Small had become the first designer at the Paris design level to introduce clothing designs specifically for global warming. Then in January 2008, he presented his "Do Something" collection initiative prompting individuals to begin to take personal action to help resolve world climate change problems.

In June 2008, during the Paris men’s fashion week at beginning moments of the world economic crisis with oil pricing at 140$ a barrel, he presented his collection along with a revolutionary written documentation essay for Spring/summer 2009 after an interview request for information on the collection by Surface Magazine entitled “Pixels.Mosaics.Patchworks a new look at wardrobe, life and planet” which defined the principles that influenced and led the entire industry towards the sustainability movement. The collection and strategy focused on maximizing long-term value to the customer, recycling, local sourcing (using the best of today’s made in Italy resources), maximizing levels of handwork in the product, organic hand-dyeing and treatment techniques, patchwork, pixilated elements-digital imagery and mosaics, historical reference and its relevance to today, limited quantity-artisanal production and micro-scaling.

Shamefully, the original treatise in June 2008 was declined for publication by the editors of Surface Magazine as being "too big of an idea for the whole industry," and too critical of corporate fashion advertiser interests. Small nevertheless began to self-publish the treatise in his collection dealer storybooks for over a decade that were sent with GBS deliveries to stores and promoted its arguments and points through his own focused channels including the Geoffrey B. Small thread on the "Designers and their Work" forum on StyleZeitgeist.com.

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A new horizon: hyper-quality...

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In the middle of ongoing world economic crisis, Small began pushing the envelope of "hyper-quality," a new bespoke hand-tailored concept using the world’s best Italian noble luxury fabrics and components and a vast array of hand detailing and treatments that spanned over 30 years of clothes-making experience. Combined with a social, political and environmental message, the designer began creating the most sustainable, personal, and environmentally-sound luxury wardrobe concept in the world with 2 leading collections in Paris that would set the direction for Small’s work and the rest industry for decades to come. In January 2009, “Gold” marked the first use of Fratelli Piacenza pure Alashan cashmere fabrics in an avant-garde Paris collection and in June “LU” introduced the first entirely sustainable Paris designer collection in the industry with organic fibre fabrics by Luigi Parisotto and the first 100% recycled leather extreme artisanal collection of sustainable shoes and sneakers by Giuseppe Rebesco.

In 2010, he was asked to write the powerful foreword entitled "The Race is On" for the industry’s first design book on sustainable design and his fundamental work in this area was covered in “Eco-Fashion” published by Laurence King in London and written by Sass Brown, of the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT). The long-term impact has been undeniable-leading first to a growing wave of press coverage, followed by a massive industry-wide sustainability greenwashing trend, and then a whole new generation of brands and designers trying to copy and follow the designer's pioneering approach.

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Becoming a reluctant anti-nuclear activist

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As a result of the Italian government's plan to build 10-15 controversial untested European Pressurized nuclear Reactors (EPR) promoted by France’s AREVA and EDF in collaboration with Italy’s Enel SpA-- and with the Venice-Chioggia-Cavarzere Venezia area where Small lives and works as one of the primary sites—the designer in 2009 became an expert on the enormous dangers and risks that nuclear power imposes, especially on those who must live or work near a nuclear plant, and was forced to become intensely involved at the local and community levels in Italy as a reluctant anti-nuclear activist. In this regard, he joined a list of famous designers preceding him including Yohji Yamamoto, Katherine Hamnett, the late Issey Miyake (a nuclear bomb survivor) and Vivienne Westwood.

In January 2010, he began dedicating his international design collections to raising awareness and supporting the movements of citizens around the world to protect themselves against the unprecedented building and re-commissioning of over 800 nuclear power plants around the world - and the unchecked proliferation of plutonium-based nuclear energy and potential weapons being promoted as “the Nuclear Renaissance” - and hastily pushed by industry and governments around the world as a ‘safe and clean energy’ solution to global warming. Indeed, nothing could have been further from the truth.

On June 28, 2010, nine months before the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Small introduced the first international designer collection to openly come out against the dangers of nuclear energy and arms proliferation with a controversial runway presentation in Paris, entitled "Logomania revisited," dedicated to the people of Italy and around the world who were fighting the ravages of a nuclear power industry going out of control.

In May 2011, he staged a special Logomania art installation in Venice during the opening of the 54th Biennale d'Arte di Venezia entitled "This is not a flower," as part of the successful grass-roots Italian National Referendum Campaign on Nuclear Power that legally stopped the government's nuclear program and has allowed Italy to remain nuclear-free since 1986.

In January 2012, Small pioneered another controversial and emotional presentation entitled “You cannot evict an idea” a landmark collection with a special fashion art performance & installation in Paris dedicated to the Occupy movement and non-violent people around the world working for freedom, dignity & equality for all with particular notes on the elimination of civil rights, due process of law, democracy and the true free market system taking place in the United States at the time.

The designer’s involvement in numerous social and activist-related issues has also included a long line of poignant controversial Paris presentations which have explored Death and families (Fathers and Mothers 2014), Surveillance, violence and terrorism (Witness 2015), Deforestation (Forests & Trees 2015), Chanel (Examen Reginae 2015), Obsessive compulsive behaviors (Heartbeat 2016) and Emotional flight (Escape 2016), The Third Industrial Revolution (On Your Mark 2018), Microburst global warming storms (Wait 2018), Greenwashing (I am not sustainable 2019), the value of science (Radical Numbers 2019), risks of war, empire and gender issues (L'Alcebiade 2019) and the return to Cold War (Just another Boston Guy 2020) leading to an entire new generation of other "activist" and "sustainable" designers and brands that have flooded the market over the past decade.

The designer’s process of design creation and production and his approach to company management are also unique in the industry. In 2009, a clear decision was made to create a completely vertical design & production operation all under one roof that would enable the firm to have 100 percent artistic control over all aspects of its creative and clothes-making operations, as prerequisite to being to provide and ensure only the highest levels of value, excellence and service for GBS customers. As result of the extraordinary quality and exclusivity resulting from this approach, from 2013-2019 the firm began to experience phenomenal growth averaging 20-30 percent annually, and attracted the attention of many in the business world for its extreme investments in handmade technologies and extensive tailoring research and capability, all combined with a totally contrarian philosophy and approach to Italy’s, and indeed the world’s, fashion industry leadership.

At the end of 2013, Small moved his operations from the apartments on the Via dei Martiri in Cavarzere to the larger Via Spalato workrooms in the same town which enabled him to begin to build a larger staff and expand on his vision to build a new kind of Italian clothing production and creation company for the 21st century. After 13 years working in the Via dei Martiri apartments, the new workrooms at Via Spalato more than tripled its usable space enabling it to enter a new organization growth period which took the firm from 2 employees to over 30 within 6 years .

To do so, the firm aggressively hired and invested in people in Italy at a time when unemployment and business closings in the fashion industry were at record levels, especially in the local area around Cavarzere which had been decimated by the collapse of the Italian textile and garment production industry over the past decade and a half. At the same time, the firm continuously raised its prices on the world market, along with its quality and long-term value to the customer, instead of lowering them to try to compete on lower prices alone. The investments in human excellence and extreme artisanal and material quality paid off and demand rose steadily.

In 2016, the firm passed the 1 million euro wholesale turnover mark for the first time and changed its legal form from an Italian Ditta Individuale (sole- proprietorship) into an Italian Società a Responsibilità Limitata (corporation) and incorporated under the name of Geoffrey B. Small Made in Italy Srl to emphasize its long-term human-based commitment to Italy and its people, economy and industry.

From 2014-2018, the totally unique story resulted in speaking engagement invitations from the Luxury Business Program at The School of Economia at the University of Padova, the Sustainable Masters Fashion MBA Program at the CUOA Foundation in Vicenza, the fashion design program at the IUAV University of Venezia at Ca' Foscari, the Eth0s Seminar Series in Shanghai, China; and a special documentary interview series shot in Paris by director Alan Grazioso during the “You cannot evict an idea” presentation campaign that was distributed by Centgen and seen by over 200,000 students and instructors in business & managerial education programs across North America. Extensive writings and articles also appeared in the online design forum StyleZeitgeist.com, and design print publications including Many of Them, Masterpiece and Fucking Young published in Spain, Another and Sebastien in the UK, and Less Magazine published in Denmark on the designers’ role and commitment to these issues profoundly influencing and challenging a wide swath of corporate management decision-makers in the industry worldwide.

The Paris collection and presentation of “Radicallissimo” in June 2015 highlighted the firm’s total commitment to creating and showing the world the very best of Made in Italy that is still possible today, including the long-term special collaborations and GBS Key Supplier partnerships among the country’s greatest living artisanal fabric and component makers such as Fratelli Piacenza 1733, Luigi Parisotto, Tessitura La Colombina, Ratti, Serica della Marca, Fontana, Tessitura Mauri and Fortuny among others.

A new art of presentation in Paris

As the company grew dramatically in sales and personnel, it also pioneered a new level of human fashion art in Paris fashion week presentations involving world-premier live theatre, music, opera, dance and mime performances of works by William Blake, John Cage, Shakespeare, Samuel Beckett, Feodor Dostoyevski, and Marc Antonio Zani... including the first live opera “Secrets”, live theatre “Come and Go,” Shakespearean ”Get Ready,” Dostoyevskean “The Onion,” and world-premiere of Zani’s “L’Alcidbiade” runway Paris presentations in history. “100” marked the firm’s 100th collection presented in Paris, along with “Witness”, “Grow Deep”“Heartbeat,” “Forests and Trees,”“Escape,” “Get Set,” "On Your Mark,” “Wait,” “I am not sustainable,” “Radical Numbers,” and “Just another Boston guy” all marking a historic body of work made possible by the collaborations of British Architect Paul Bradley, Opera Director Brad Carlton Sisk, Dance artist Matilde Canuti, Architect Davide Gabriele, Lighting designer Maurice Giraud, runway photographer Guido Barbagelata, videographer Kris Dionisio, Actors Tatiana Anisimova, Sergei Vankevich, Anastasia Glushkova and many others.

In February 2020, the world was changed by the Covid-19 Pandemic. The Veneto region of Italy where GBS is located, was at the epi-center of the first breakout in Europe after it had first overwhelmed the city of Wuhan in China in December. While the Veneto experienced very few deaths in the first wave, its neighbor Lombardia was devastated-losing hundreds of lives in a nightmare scenario with hospitals and medical systems completely overrun by the mysterious and deadly respiratory virus that had no cure.

On March 22nd, 2020 in adherence and support of the Italian Government's measures to close all production companies, GBS continued its own voluntary closure of general operations at the Via Spalato workrooms until the 4th May when a very gradual reopening of operations began to rebuild the business. A large part of the staff was able to continue working at home as part of the Smart Working and Lavoro Agile sections of the decree for persons who can telecommute or otherwise perform their jobs in the safer self-isolation social-distancing compliant conditions of their homes.

On March 22, 2020 GBS announced the voluntarily closing of its via Spalato workrooms in support of the Italian Government's nationwide lockdown and the safety of the firm's employees, community and customers.

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The firm is also a leader in extreme handmade tailoring technology and its tailors do not work in assembly line type production. Many of the GBS tailors could thus work autonomously completing entire project pieces alone in the safety of their homes and as a result, a minimum of jobs were lost as team members worked together to flatten the curve and survive the pandemic crisis. At the same time, crucial production and deliveries were able to be maintained and executed for GBS dealers at a time when the rest of the industry was inoperative. And GBS customers continued to support and acquire the firm's designs around the world.

But despite the terrible challenges, the firm continued to operate due to its totally unique industrial position and capability which gave it 100% control of all aspects of design, production and wholesale distribution, combined with over 40 years of hands-on industry experience, and the best workroom tailoring organization, and material and component suppliers, in the world. Its ability to change, innovate, create and produce short-volume product at unparalled levels of value and quality were unmatched in the industry. And its ability to help its best dealers adapt and cultivate a new growing clientele and business at retail was absolutely unique as well.

Designing for Covid

In response to the initial drastic lack of protective equipment, particularly face masks, in Italy at the time of the breakout- the GBS General Purpose Reusable Protection Mask was created and developed by the firm for local community donation in the Cavarzere area to combat the Coronavirus pandemic and was not for sale. Unlike disposable single-use masks, it featured a high quality advanced sustainable and environmental design for improved comfort and long-term use, and used 95 percent natural fibre materials to minimize the rapidly growing problem of Covid-19 contaminated medical waste from plastic-based protection products. It featured a triple filtration system using 2 separated layers of very tightly woven pure cotton developed by Tessitura Luigi Parisotto in Sarcedo VI and an inside layer of 3mm non-woven wool blend felted fabric made by Freudenberg Italia SpA. It could be handwashed in hot water (57º c or higher) with detergent for disinfecting and sterilizing to kill any possible presence of Covid-19 virus safely prior to reusing.

Since its development in late March 2020 some 4000 sustainable GBS handmade General Purpose Reusable Protection Masks were built and donated to local community persons and organizations, and gifted free of charge as standard equipment with every GBS design piece shipped to our dealers and customers around the world. By using this mask, a single person could reduce the use of hundreds of disposable masks per year per person, avoid the high safety risks of reusing disposable masks (which studies showed could contain the Covid-19 virus for up to 7 days on their surfaces after being worn) and reduce their damaging environmental and virus contamination impacts and astronomical economic cost; and help support front line medical workers by making sure available medical use mask supply went only to them and assist to reduce the spread of coronavirus in the territory by wearing, washing and reusing this mask for him or herself. During this time, Geoffrey B. Small also performed ongoing research and prototype development into mask and protective clothing design for the Covid-19 emergency, and tested and prepared applications for safety and medical certifications to expand its production in this area if needed.

Extensive security and safety measures were also adopted by the firm during this period that have since been maintained and expanded upon for the future to protect customers, employees and community. By supporting and adhering 100 percent to all Italian government and EU decrees and regulations regarding Coronavirus safety and emergency measures, protocols and procedures, Geoffrey B Small Made in Italy Srl was given permission by the Italian national, regional, provincial authorities to produce hand made clothing and accessory products produced for export. And after accomodating the numerous obligatory site inspections by authorities during the initial crisis regarding Covid-19 protocols, it was soon determined that the existing Via Spalato workrooms facilities were no longer adequate to ensure the future growth and capability of the firm to serve its growing worldwide customer demand and also be able to meet and comply with a new era of ever stricter safety, health and environmental regulations that was being implemented all across Europe.

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The GBS Superworkrooms at Via dell'Artigianato 4

In late 2020, the firm signed a lease on a new 700 square meter facility on the outskirts of Cavarzere Venezia where it began to create the most advanced handmade clothing workrooms in the history of tailoring. With signed options to expand, the GBS Superworkrooms represented a doubling of existing operating space and over 6 figures in euro investment on a new state-of-the-art design and production center dedicated to bringing its extreme handmade clothing and sustainable design technologies and capacities to an entirely new level.

The new GBS Superworkrooms also allowed the firm to support its dealers in way that had never been done before- all designed to provide more and more service, quality, innovation and excellence for a growing number of GBS customers worldwide- from expanded VIP special order services and remarkably improved capacities and turnarounds—to the revolutionary GBS Evolution program begun during global lockdown as a highly targeted wholesale online design creation and selling service based in Cavarzere Venezia with extremely targeted social media support for dealers.

In 2022, the firm expanded into 400 more square meters of space and began to develop a unique expansive showroom space and buying service that no Paris showroom operation could come close to, where dealers could work directly with the firm inside its world-leading creation and production facilities and have access to the firm’s latest research collections, an enormous array of fabric and treatment options, and over 4,000 original archive prototypes. As the Ukraine war broke out and the Paris fashion week system began to show severe signs of irresponsibility, corruption, inefficiency and contraction, the firm decided to launch the GBS Evolution Program to focus on being one of the only world-class design firms to show completely on its own without needing to participate in any major fashion week—with the best store buyers in the world making the special trip to Cavarzere Venezia across no less than 13 different GBS Evolution collection presentations to date since 2021.

While it can be argued as to whether the designer not only invented and wrote the book on true sustainable design and ethical production-what is undeniable and even more important--is that the definition and conceptual argument has been put into practice and actual operation by GBS now for decades in a world now in perpetual crisis. GBS is not only a research firm which has led the global fashion pack for almost 4 consecutive decades, it also represents one of the world's most advanced and successful working models in sustainable design and ethical manufacturing practices, and one of the industry's most diligent activists on environmental safety.

Shunning virtually all fashion and mass media press, Small is one of mainstream fashion's most vociferous critics. The designer focuses his time on aggressively developing a design and tailoring organization to continue to create the field's most unique and highest quality design pieces with no compromises, and teach the world how to make clothes in the 21st century using the firm’s work as a platform to inform and inspire a new generation of decision-makers to make the world a better place.

He also maintains one of the tightest distributions in the industry, with less than 15 exclusive dealers in the entire world authorized to sell his increasingly rare and valuable work. Production at his world-famous GBS Superworkrooms at Cavarzere Venezia is now limited to less than 2,100 unique hand made pieces for the entire world per year astoundingly with almost every single one personally overseen, tried on, fit-tested, photographed, documented for its provenance, and then signed and numbered by the designer himself before being delivered to its client. An astonishing feat and commitment to both the product and its customer for a chief designer and CEO of a world-class level designer label and production firm. But fundamentally necessary if you are aiming to make the best clothes in the world today.

"We have no interest in being the biggest designer in the world. We only want to be the best."

Proof once again for those that really know, that after 47 years, Geoffrey B. Small continues to be a true pioneer in fashion.