THE PITTI UOMO DIARIES, DAY 1
“There will be a minute of silence to honour the passing of Silvio Berlusconi, and I’ve been asked to tell you to keep quiet.”
After pausing for effect, the woman continued; “my job depends on it. I could be fired if you laugh!”.
Standing on the vast terrace of Villa Bardini, overlooking Florence and its majestic Duomo, we were celebrating the inauguration of Pitti Uomo 104, taking place during a few days in the middle of June. Until the warning, none of us had even mentioned Berlusconi, but instead preferred to keep the conversation light.
After the aperitivo, we would walk to another terrace, even higher up.
The dinner was alfresco; a large white tent with a line of chandeliers hanging from the improvised ceiling, large bouquets of pink pioneers at the centre of each table.
The festivities had been damped by the recent news of the death of the former Italian prime minister.
A divisive figure during his lifetime, the organizers were now cautious that we would not understand the complicated nuances and politics of this event.
We assured her that there was nothing to worry about and went to find our seats.
The sun was slowly setting, but large candles were burning, showing the way through the garden.
Next to me I found the founders of Copenhagen-based menswear brand Isnurh, Kasper Juhl Todbjerg and Oliver Abrenica.
“I’ve always been interested in fashion as a form of self-expression,” Abrenica explained his reasoning behind founding a fashion brand. The brand merges Scandinavian streetwear with high quality fabrics, original artworks, and ethical production.
“We collaborate with the Danish company Rodinia, which allows us to print our shirts without using any water,” he further elaborated, when I asked him about the brand’s commitment to sustainable production practices.
Starting a fashion week with an outdoor dinner is the perfect way to ensure that one’s guests ease into this strange job, where “work” often may consist of eating risotto and drinking champagne while discussing fashion in ancient, terraced gardens.
For decades, Pitti Uomo has been the most important event in international menswear, operating both as a fair for buyers and a directional fashion week for fashion media.
Twice a year, in Florence, this is where the future of menswear is manifested, both through established brands and emerging designers like Isnurh.
The morning following the gala dinner, Pitti Uomo 104 was officially opened by Dario Nardella, mayor of Florence and Eugenio Giani, president of the region of Tuscany.
The political presence demonstrates the weight still ascribed to fashion in this part of Italy, known for centuries for its dedicated craftsmanship and quality goods.
Pitti Uomo has had a slightly unfair reputation in mainstream media, as many mainly associate it with the “male peacocks”; people dressing up in outlandish outfits, walking back and forth in and around the fair, hoping that a streetstyle photographer will make them famous.
This is honestly the worst part of visiting the fair, but during this first post-pandemic summer, the fair is both smaller and much calmer than it used to be before the lockdowns of COVID-19. The hustle of previous years has been replaced with a more easy-going attitude.
The staff of Brunello Cucinelli is all dressed in linen suits, a study in softness and relaxed tailoring.
In another part of the building, male models walk aimlessly back and forth, dressed in elegant garments that fashion brands hope will look particularly good on their fit bodies.
Visiting the exhibition spaces of different brands demonstrate that menswear is not a monolith, but instead much more varied than what it may appear in the local shops.
On the evening of the first whole day, which means the day after the opening dinner, something of a ritual takes place. Almost every season of Pitti Uomo, Swedish magazine Plaza Uomo will team up with a brand of their choice, inviting friends and family (and of course everyone else who’s in the mood) to join them for cocktails at Palazzo Budini Gattai.
In this historical aristocratic building, with frescoed walls and a large romantic garden, people will mingle while having drinks and nibbling away on cheese and other delicacies.
Later on in the evening, around ten pm or so, guests will start to move on, going to their respective dinner engagements, where they inevitably will meet new people, and once again engage in discussions on the future of menswear, often lasting well into the night.
THE PITTI UOMO DIARIES, DAY 2
The second day started with sunshine, e-mails, and breakfast at Hotel Cellai, a small boutique hotel only a few minutes from the fair.
First on the agenda was an installation by Chulaap, designed by Chu Suwannapha, Thai by birth and South African by adoption.
Minutes before the event, I was walking around the fair when five young men in enormous hats and colourful outfits passed me, going in the opposite direction.
Not sure what I had seen, I muttered something about the Pitti peacocks, but once inside, I realized that what I had witnessed was the beginning of the Chulaap presentation, in which the five models posed while Suwannapha tended to details in their outfits in front of an audience documenting the whole process with their phones.
The history of the infamous Pitti Uomo-look has a lot to do with smoking.
Unlike in many other countries today, smoking cigarettes is in Italy still very much part of the everyday.
While taking breaks from representing their brands, many fashionable men would smoke, leaning against the rails of the main building of the fair.
Photographers would take their photos and post online, and soon everyone wanted to be photographed at Pitti Uomo.
The people who actually worked in the industry were soon replaced with influencers, who only wanted to look the fashionable part, not work for an actual brand.
One of the themes of this season’s fair was sustainability, interpreted by Chinese spinner Consinee, market leader in premium yarns with a certified, sustainable supply chain. In recent years, sustainable fashion has gone through a shift and has emphasized more the aesthetic aspects, which were evident in this poetic exhibition.
It was also evident in the presentation of 10 collections by young designers, in which our friends from last night, Isnurh, were included.
Gelato Vivoli, a few steps from Santa Croce, has been a Florentine treasure since 1930 but has recently become an Instagram sensation.
People will wait in line to have their ice-cream.
On a sunny day like today, it’s the perfect pitstop between fashion shows. A group of us headed over but were soon surprised by the rain and rushed inside.
A fashion fair is a peculiar phenomenon.
All around you, you see new garments, ideas that someone once had that are now manifested as pieces of clothing, waiting to be sold and worn, before being replaced with even newer garments.
It’s like seeing a potential future slowly taking shape, but what will eventually sell, and what will be left unused, is up to the people of the future to decide.
THE PITTI UOMO DIARIES, DAY 3
”I fell in love with this place. We wanted to be upstairs in the ball room, but the Michelangelo pieces there could be damaged by the subwoofer. We were looking at villas, but I was told no one wants to drive outside of the city. We found amazing villas, but that will have to wait for another time.”
On the third day of Pitti Uomo, during a meeting at Florence’s Palazzo Corsini, the location of his fashion show, Eli Russell Linnetz explains the sometimes volatile relationship between Renaissance art and contemporary technology. His brand, ERL, has in only a few years become one of the most hyped brands in menswear, making Venice Beach an unexpected addition to fashion’s geography. When asked to present at Pitti Uomo, he began to think of ways that the two places could fit together:
“I tried to make a connection between Venice Beach and Florence, I was excited about the Renaissance. Because of my background as a filmmaker, I am always trying to tell a story first and the clothes are second for me. Also the casting is very important, of course. The story of the collection and the show is that it is a hundred years from now, in the future. We’re in Florence in the year 2176, and Florence is under water. The boys who will walk the runway are supposed to be surfers from California, they flock to Florence in the summer to go surfing. One night, they masquerade as rich kids to sneak into a surreal ball at a wealthy ambassador’s house. They get drunk and go upstairs, where they play dress up with the things they find there – objects from around the world, present day 2017 pieces, antiques from Japan and the Roman Empire.”
The collection is the brand’s 8th, and while the style is consistent with the brand universe, it is also different, as almost all pieces are made by hand in Florence, with the exception of a few that were made in Venice Beach.
ERL’s most recent claim to fame was collaborating with Dior on a capsule menswear collection. For Pitti Uomo, he has continued to build on the knowledge and understanding that he acquired while working with the French luxury brand:
“Everything is organic for me, I never planned on doing a runway show, but working with Dior inspired med to do more suiting and expand my knowledge on fashion and tailoring. When I did Dior, it was based on the Gianfranco Ferré-archives, and this inspired me to think about archives also for this show., which led me to the archives of the LA Opera, as I’m not only interested in fashion but also costume, as a way to tell a story.”
The rest of the day was spent walking around the city and the fair. It’s interesting to notice that the streetwear trend, made fashionable by Givenchy during Riccardo Tisci’s reign (2005–2017) and given added emphasis by Balenciaga’s Demna Gvasalia, is all but gone. Granted, this is Pitti Uomo, but this is something that I have noticed for quite some time now. Young people, who have grown up with middle-aged men wearing sneakers and college shirts, want to look like adults. The look is dressed up, smart casual but not street.
In the evening, it was time to return to Palazzo Corsini, for the ERL.-show, the highlight of the week. It took place in the palace’s courtyard. It was apparent that this was a show for social media – beautiful boys in tight clothes parading gadgets. The collection lacked commercial potential but had all the signs of something cleverly planned (almost like ticking certain boxes) to make it go viral. Is Instagram-fashion still a thing? I thought that people would have grown tired of it. After the show, I walk back to the hotel, in the warm Tuscan night. What I see people wearing around me in the narrow streets – women in colourful dresses, men in sharp suits and shirts open almost to the waist – seems a lot more relevant than what I just saw play out at the palace.