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Textile products
Labelling and marking of textile products has been ruled by EU Regulation 1007/2011 since May 8, 2012.
Label indications
Throughout the European Union, textile products to be sold to final consumers must display a firmly attached label or mark that clearly indicates:
- fibre composition. Labels must display products’ fibre composition, drawing from the list of fibres available in Annex I of EU Regulation 1007/2011. Such information must be provided in Italian, in full (no acronyms or abbreviations are allowed), in easily legible print, and in descending order of proportion;
- presence of non-textile parts of animal origin. It must be indicated by the phrase "Contains non-textile parts of animal origin". It is not required to use further specifications of such parts, but if terms such as "leather", "fur”" or "hide" are used, they must comply with Leg. Decree 68/2020;
- the person who is responsible for marketing the products. The Consumer Code expressly provides that the following information must be indicated:
- producers’ identities and details (name, business name, the registered trademark of the company, address);
- specification of products’ type (identification code), or possibly, of the batch to which the products belong.
Commercial documents
Textile fibre names and descriptions of fibre compositions shall be clearly indicated in the accompanying commercial documents.
In the phases that precede sale to final consumers, a label may be replaced by the commercial documents containing the data and the fibre names indicated in Annex I of EU Regulation 1007/2011. Using abbreviations via a mechanized processing code is allowed, provided that its commercial meaning is explained in the same documents.
Operators’ obligations
When marketing its products, the manufacturer must guarantee that labels and marking are correctly supplied and the relevant information is accurate. In particular, the information must be easily legible, visible, clear and printed in uniform characters, in regards to size, style and font. If the manufacturer is not established in the EU, the importer is responsible for complying with these requirements.
When making a textile product available on the market, the distributor shall ensure that the product displays the appropriate label or marking.
As provided for in EU Regulation 1007/2011, a distributor is considered a manufacturer when he markets a product under his name or trademark, attaches a label, or modifies its content.
Things to know
On January 4, 2018, Legislative Decree 190/2017 came into force. The Decree updated the framework of the sanctions prescribed for incorrect labelling in the textile and footwear sectors.
The labelling rules, contained in EU Regulation 1007/2011 for the textile sector and Directive 94/11/EC for the footwear sector, and implemented in Italy by Ministerial Decree 11/4/1996, were not modified. On the contrary, modifications were introduced as regards to the sanctions foreseen for violation of the aforementioned rules. In particular, the following sanctions were introduced and/or increased into the Italian legal system:
- sanctions related to the sale of footwear without a label or with a non-compliant label;
- sanctions related to the sale of textile products without a label or with a label that is untruthful or non-compliant;
- sanctions for online sales as well as for the presentation of products in catalogues and leaflets in the absence of information on composition;
- sanctions to be applied when the manufacturer/importer does not comply with orders issued by the supervisory authority (Ministry of Economic Development) to correct labelling or withdraw products.