Pitti 90 – first thoughts

florence

Pitti 90 – first thoughts

Pitti 90 was already my 5th fair. The first I attended was the 86th edition in January 2014. Has it changed? After few times, can you see a difference? Do you experience it in different way now?

I think there are different stages of experiencing Pitti for everyone. First edition is always very exciting and you just can’t get enough of it. You are not tired, you like everything you see and you are happy whatever happens. Then comes edition 2 and 3 and you are getting different perspective. You know where all the buildings are, where all the action is and where most of the people go. The square seems less interesting and somehow less colourful.

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View on Florence from Michelangelo hill

By the time you are there for the 4th and 5th time you can call yourself a veteran. You try to find places where less people are, where you can more easily talk to your friends and have some non obstructed area for best photos. You spend more time chatting and talking to brands rather than looking at other people. Obviously it is not as exciting as during your 1st time but speaking for myself, I enjoy it probably even more. I feel more connected to Pitti now. We all know Florence that bit better and it does really feel like coming back home.

There are more discussions about collaborations, photoshoots, new projects etc. Because Pitti is really much more than just showing off at the square in front of main pavilion.

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Classic style I enjoy most, here with my friends from B&Tailor and The Finery Company (photo by B&Tailor)

This year I felt like Pitti 90 has started to shift to the outsides of Fortezza da Basso. Main events have always been in the centre in the evenings but more and more brands, store owners, journalists etc organize time together during the day. Photoshoots for magazines, lunch together, coffee, store visits, fittings, new collections. For that reason this year I saw only less classic elegance at Fortezza da Basso and Pitti 90 than before. The best dressed men start to spend more time outside Pitti hence more exposure for peacocks. I am not sure what official Pitti goal is and what direction they want to go but clearly classic elegance is not taking over. It would be wise by the organizers to make it an event for everyone, classic elegance is a niche. If they want the event to be only more popular there is going to be more fashion, streetwear and extravagance involved. Hopefully everyone can find something to their liking. I got the feeling that the main square is not most important for the big guys anymore, to the point that they stopped going there almost. Upcomings, wannabe’s, sartorialists on steroids and the likes stay hang out there. To see similar point of view make sure to have a look at brilliant documentary video by Aaron Christian and Jamie Millar on Pitti peacocks below, its quite a relaxed take on the phenomenon of peacocking and is hilarious too.

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Fernando and Norman outside Bespoke Symposium at Stefano Bemer store

As a last note, I will try to show you some classic looks from Pitti in the upcoming post even though I was not really taking any special street style photos. I want to do that so that you don’t think that Pitti 90 looked like those photos from fashion magazines only. There is so much more to it. My goal has always been to show some quality through the blog so hopefully I can do that too this time.

We, me and my wife, had a fantastic time at Pitti 90 and will be back for sure. We are very thankful that we could participate in some amazing events during the week, like bi-annual Symposium at Stefano Bemer organized by Simon Crompton of Permanent Style, very summer-like party by Vitale Barberis Canonico or Plaza Uomo cocktail party. We could share a laugh, have conversations with interesting people, take the whole week easy, enjoy delicious food at dinners and end evening at Gilli’s with drinks. That’s the best part of it and hope that every visitor finds their own thing they enjoy in Florence.

I wanted only to share some first thoughts now. We have also been working on a vlog type video so hope to release this in the upcoming week as well. In the upcoming posts I will show more photos. Enjoy the video.

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