While the Obama administration cooks up (boring) bank and auto bailouts, Italy is planning a bailout of its fashion industry. Italian minister of economic development Claudio Scajola promised to present the "first interventions" to help Italy's fashion industry by the middle of the month. Last month the Italian government approved a stimulus package of about $2.54 billion to help the auto and domestic-appliance sectors, ignoring the fashion industry. Head of Italy's Chamber of Fashion Mario Boselli would not stand for this and called out the injustice. “I can understand helping the automotive industry but wouldn’t fashion deserve the same, if not more, consideration than the furniture industry?” Boselli told WWD. The fashion industry in Italy employs around 80,000 people and is home to 30,000 distribution companies. Revenues in the Italian fashion industries were down 4 percent for 2008, with things getting especially bad at the end of the year. It's also sort of an image booster, only proving that Europe is infallibly more glamorous than we are. Even their bailouts are chic.

Italian Government to Boost Fashion [WWD]