This paper deals with the investigation and identification of the industrial best practices in the areas of knowledge and process management and business organization applied to design process. The results have been achieved through an empirical research carried out by the authors with the support of the Ge.Co. Observatory of Politecnico di Milano, which focus deals with the evaluation of the Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) approach within manufacturing companies. The research has been conducted with the use of a structured questionnaire distributed on a sample of Italian companies belonging to the fashion (apparel, leather and footwear) industry, carried out through face to face inter-views, according to a survey guide. The results of this study have been classified using a maturity model developed inside the Observatory, which aims to categorize these industries according to nine dimensions, grouped into three main areas: Organization, Process and Knowledge Management.