The general conception among the Pitti Uomo visitors was that the pre-pandemic energy was back in Florence. The number of visitors explained why, welcoming nearly 13,300 buyers, including approximately 5,000 (+6,5% compared to a year ago) from international markets, with total visitors nearing 20,000. The fair also presented a strong lineup of Guest Designers, featuring MM6 Maison Margiela — under the helm of Finnish Creative Director Heikki Salminen — and the debut runway show for Setchu by the winner of the 2023 LVMH Prize, Satoshi Kuwata.
Ida Petersson, co-founder of brand strategy and creative agency Good Eggs and former director of men’s and womenswear buying at Browns, has visited Pitti for over a decade. She agreed that the event was back with full energy.
— It has all the nuances of menswear, she said, ranging from the traditional, beautiful tailoring like Brunello Cucinelli and Kiton that Italy is so known for, over to Sebago and Champion, Scandinavian Manifesto concentrating on the Scandinavian designers, and everything in between. It’s something for everyone — and there are a lot of brands, so you definitely need to be pre-planned.
Is it as relevant as pre-COVID?
— Definitely. What amazes me is that Pitti has such a wonderful wayhe zeitgeist of what’s happening, where so many other trade shows have disappeared completely or just become less relevant, less visited, or lowered in standard. When Gorpcore started, they were the first to have a dedicated section for that trend. The Guest Designer shows are a super important element — it’s not easy for designers these days when it’s incredibly expensive to put on a show, but at Pitti, it’s the most supportive system. If you get chosen, they give you everything! And, in January, it’s the first of all menswear shows, so you get to ’open’, and it sets the tone for the entire season.
Petersson says there’s not so much buying by the international retailers at Pitti anymore. It’s more of a place where you go to see everything and buy later — during booked appointments in showrooms in Paris, Milan, or, for many Scandinavians, Copenhagen. There are, however, regional differences.
— The Italians and other smaller boutiques that will not be travelling, come here and buy, buy, buy. A big global player, such as Lane Crawford in Hong Kong, will be travelling for the next 12 weeks. For them, it’s really good to see stuff, but they also need to assess other things, so you’re just giving a sneak peek in a good way.
— At the beginning of the season, you may call Pitti a beautiful showcase of how everything will be shaped out. It’s impressive to see the organisation’s work to maintain the same level and to see the best profiles and the biggest titles that come here.
The feeling is that no one has that much time anymore, so it feels almost like a luxury to be able to spend two or three days just looking at stuff.
— Yes. But the reason why Pitti is so loved by the community of menswear buyers is that it’s not slow — there are still events and dinners happening — but there’s a different pace. Once you hit Paris, in a week from now, it’s manic, so this is a good way for people just to ease themselves into the new year, Petersson shared.
What’s your favourite part?
— My favourite, the I Go Out section, is back with a bang. I was particularly pleased to see Pas Normal Studios here for the first time, after working on expanding their range, and also my friendly neighbours in East London, Knees Up — a running community that also hosted the first official Pitti Run. I did not participate, just as a disclaimer.
1. Knees Up
The London-based retailer Knees Up didn’t only host the first-ever Pitti Run, but also curated Knees Up Running Space, a clear highlight at the fair, featuring seven brands from Sweden, South Africa, UK, and more.
— We wanted to curate it so that we have a mixture of the two ’sides’ of running — road running and trail running — which are both really prevalent and are having almost booms of their own, Ethan Buttress, Retail Operations & Buyer, explained. And within that, there’s also the micro trends of the spectrum of style and aesthetic. We’ve got some really playful brands in the form of Alex Zono and Unna and some really performance focused brands, such as Portal, NNormal, and SOAR. A brand like Raide is focusing a lot on the fabrication of the products as how lightweight they are, and how well they stand up in a race environment.
What do you see coming in 2025?
— A lot of brands have been very much influenced by the gorp culture and the colour palettes of browns, greens, and grays as well as muted tones, Buttress shared. I think we’ll see more of that but people will also become more and more playful, with both Alexsono and Unna being really good examples of that. They’re throwing caution to the winds and just doing weird wacky stuff that people are resonating with, because it’s just fun. I think fashion needs that, and that’s what running can do — allowing people just to not take themselves too seriously.
2. Scandinavian Manifesto
Pitti Uomo 107 saw the return of Scandinavian Manifesto, curated by the Copenhagen-based trade fair CIFF.
— We create a space for Scandinavian brands to manifest themselves in the Italian market in a nice way at one of the biggest trade shows in the world for the men, Shane Baron Stennicke-Roensholdt, CIFF Interim Director, explained. It’s been running for the past seven or eight years, so it’s well established, well renowned, and everybody knows that it is. We try to use this as leverage and a tool for the brands and set them up with meetings and appointments before they go to Paris, which most of the brands typically do, where they write their orders and see the buyers differently. Pitti is more of a relationship-building forum than Paris and Copenhagen, where it’s also an order platform.
Stennicke-Roensholdt continues that one key to the strong partnership between CIFF and Pitti Uomo is that it is clear to every visitor that what comes out of Scandinavia is ”a completely different field” from anywhere else in the world.
— For Pitti Uomo, it is then a matter of how they can leverage the fact that we, from Scandinavia, always want to innovate and do something new. And for us, at CIFF, it’s about making sure that the (Scandinavian Manifesto) space always has a certain freshness to it. It’s a very fruitful relationship — last summer was a huge success, and we also expect these days to be very strong.
Germany is the largest market in Europe, making it essential for Scandinavian brands. At the end of last year, CIFF debuted its partnership with the leading sports trade fair, ISPO, in Munich. This followed last fall’s activation, which brought a curated mix of Scandinavian brands to the US and a dedicated showroom during New York Fashion Week. A big ISPO activation will follow at the summer edition of CIFF in Copenhagen in August.
— Just like with Pitti, we will always try to be present where our brands want us to be present. We listen to the needs of the markets in Scandinavia and look at how we can package it and make it relevant for them. That way, we also go from being a biannual platform to one you can be part of throughout the year. Be it Pitti, be it ISPO, be it Copenhagen, be it online, digitally, Stennicke-Roensholdt explains, continuing,
— We also just launched CIFF Media, giving brands a platform to voice themselves and to showcase their brand identity and profile in a different way rather than just sending out lookbooks and ’praying.’ This way, they can connect, promote, and communicate throughout the year, to reach people when they need to be reached — and when they are susceptible to getting in ideas.
3. Beyond Tailoring
At Pitti, D-house laboratorio urbano, Pattern Group Innovation Lab, Eurojersey, and Framis Italia, and other Italian industry playerspresented Beyond Tailoring. The initiative highlighted various new solutions for the supply chain and focusing not only on innovation in products, but also innovation in the procedure behind them.
— We present classic tailoring made of new techology and new materials, Loreto Di Rienzo, R&D Director at D-house laboratorio urbano’s owner company Dyloan Bond Factory, explained. These new technologies are both virtual and physical, such as thermalwelding by Framis, which can enable very interesting results for the (garment’s) shape and performance, including resistance and transpiration. Using that, we can create a classic jacket and put it in the washing machine. Or put it in a bag, and when you take it out, it’s completely flat. It creates new possibilities for classic tailoring.
So, you may call it ’Made in Italy 2.0.’
— Yes, we try to stimulate the market. On one side for brands, to offer the concept when making their new jacket or tailoring. We also show the end consumer, a young sartorialist, how our work can be reinvented with the help of this new instrument.
— Among the brands here, we have Eurojersey presenting Sensitive Fabrics (a patented technical stretch fabrics range, Ed’s note), the mannequin brand Alvanon (aiming to transform the industry by harnessing cutting-edge body data). Clo3D is a software to make patterns in 3D while Stratasys presents 3D printing, enabling to customise certain elements, such as buttons or zippers.
— What we present here is a mini factory, Di Rienzo shared. The business model of the future will be completely different than what we have right now, based on fashion’s strong environmental impact. We have to invest in that model. In this project, we also show that it’s possible to work with very small quantities.
No big minimum orders.
– No.
And also in line with the coming EU regulations.
– Yes, absolutely, because the sustainability is not about the material you choose but which process you adopt for arriving to the market.
4. FabriX
Initiated in 2022 and funded by the Hong Kong government, the initiative FabriX helps bridging their local up and coming designers into the digital fashion worlds, such as Roblox — and giving back the full profit to them. The goal is to become the leading curated marketplace of all things Digital Fashion worldwide, merging innovation and artistry with commercial opportunities.
— We see it as a marketing tool to promote them to international platforms, Project Executive Ricky Chu explained. Last year, we went to Paris Fashion Week, we’ve also been at London Fashion Week, and now we are here at Pitti Uomo, to provide even more exposure for them. It’s an all-year-round project for growth.
FabriX’s booth, presenting its touring Digital Fashion Roadshow, stood out as one of the most spectacular.
— It’s an AR kiosk where people, just with a tap, can try selected designers’ garments, to get a glimpe about their styles. It is a breakthrough way of helping more people to try on their clothes, without having to wear it physically.
Can you also put this kiosk in a store as a retailer?
– Yes, of course. This is just a concept showing how it could look like. It could also be for a brand, in a department store, or as window merchandise. We haven’t explored it yet, though — we are a new company, currently exploring the possibilities with brands and retailers.
What are your next steps?
– Getting even more designers exposed in the project, and, most likely, go back to Paris Fashion Week in September.
5. Polimoda
The week in Florence also saw the opening of the leading fashion school Polimoda’s exhibition AN/ARCHIVE EVENT TWO: blue r/evolution, described as a ”revolutionary narrative of denim as an agent of social change.” It explores the cultural, social, and anthropological evolution of denim and the colour blue, investigating the transformative power of workwear and denim and weaving together historical memory, artistic innovation, and future vision.
The producers describe indigo blue as more than just a colour, which holds profound symbolic and cultural meaning. Historically associated with exclusivity and spirituality, it now embodies the opposites after evolving into the defining hue of workers, communities, and social movements.
Exhibition highlights include a selection of work garments that trace 150 years of denim history from the private archive of Italy’s first denim producer, Roy Roger’s. Photographer Charles Fréger presents Bleus de travail, a collection of portraits capturing students from vocational schools posing in their uniforms, symbols of their trades, presented as a true catalogue of workwear. Fréger’s images highlight the contrast between the conformity of the uniforms and the personal details that reveal the young subjects’ personalities. Lastly, textile artists Rowland and Chinami Ricketts reinterpret traditional Japanese indigo-dyeing techniques through Zurashi/Slipped, an installation inspired by the ikat process. Through dyed and intertwined threads suspended in space, they transform weaving into a visual experience, exploring the intersection of tradition and creative innovation.
— In the complex interplay between fashion and sociology, few garments tell a story as multifaceted as denim, says Massimiliano Giornetti, Director of Polimoda and curator of the exhibition. This isn’t just an exhibition about clothing—it’s a deep dive into how a single piece of fabric can reflect, challenge, and redefine social narratives. Denim embodies a living paradox: simultaneously elite and accessible, traditional yet revolutionary, local and global. Its continuous evolution stands as a testament to the fluid boundaries of our society. Every thread, every shade of indigo, carries a powerful message: clothing is never just clothing. It’s a mirror, a manifesto, a revolution.
