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MFW and Pitti return to the catwalk with men’s fashion

By FashionUnited

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Fashion

Italy is getting ready for a comeback by putting avant-garde and upcoming brands on the catwalk alongside the fashion houses, a symbol of Made in Italy tailoring skills, and by aiming for openness towards foreign designers like Chinese Jiwembo,

who debuted in the Milano Moda Uomo calendar on 23 June.

Italy’s
domestic market remains in negative territory, showing a 5.7 percent decline in men’s fashion in 2012 compared with 2011, but it seems that companies and the National Chamber for Italian Fashion have chosen the right path to win back buyers and to go back to being a marketplace for men’s fashion that is not to be missed. Despite the controversies involving the CEO of Prada, Patrizio Bertelli, and the foreign press that claimed fashion in Italy is in a deadlock situation, clinging to antiquated hierarchies. Bertelli, as of this year deputy vice chairman of the Chamber for Fashion, promptly responded that “if it weren’t for Italy, there wouldn’t be many foreign productions”. It should also be recalled that foreign sales, with a 3.8 percent increase, contribute positively to the performance of Italian men’s fashion.


Foreign buyers are on the rise at Pitti

This is even evidenced by the number of foreign buyers at Italian events. Foreign buyers present at Pitti this year showed a 4.5 percent increase compared with the June 2012 edition, with a total attendance of 7,700. The strength of the 84th edition of Pitti, which was held in Florence from 18 to 21 June, was the presence of innovative collections, alongside the major Italian tailoring brands. There was space for small and medium enterprises such as Roda which, after two years of absence, presented its new label Roda at the beach, and for corporate giants such as Saks Fifth Avenue, which has chosen the Florentine marketplace for the Italian debut of its men’s line.

Guru, which has been part of the corporate giant of Indian Bombay Rayon Fashions Limited since 2008, returned to Pitti to present the new collection produced by Inghirami and to announce the launch in China with the opening of some forty shops from now to 2016. Adidas, on the other hand, brought to the Fortezza da Basso a preview of the new collection by Tom Dixon, a proposal for travel accessories and multifunctional sportswear created by the well-known British industrial designer. The accessories, made of fine leathers and hi-tech materials, were the undisputed protagonists in Florence and Milan. The bags, including computer bags, in the male wardrobe completely cleared out. This could be seen in the men’s collection presented at Tod’s in Milan and on more or less all the catwalks.

Produced above all for the Japanese, Chinese and Koreans, the bags are giving Made in Italy products a moment of glory, a bit like what shoes have been doing for decades. So much so that Gucci, which inaugurated in Milan its first European shop dedicated to menswear, has reserved a space dedicated to customising footwear.

Success also for hats. Accessories from yesteryear are increasingly popular with young Asians (the Japanese buyers at Pitti were the most numerous after the Germans) and with Americans. Buyers of Barneys were at the stand of Barbisio, a historical brand from Biella, to buy the colourful and valuable spring/summer 2014 hat collection.

If Pitti has been established as an international marketplace, the Milan event, with 37 shows, has brought Italian tailoring skills back to centre stage. This was seen in the perfectly cut clothes by Canali at the show, in the essentiality and purity of Emporio Armani, in the ability to treat the leather of the bags and shoes in the Sartorial Touch collection, presented at the space of Tod’s Sartorial, a new floor inaugurated in the boutique on Via della Spiga of the company from the Marche region.

Photo 1: Pitti
Photo 2: Emporio Armani

Isabella Naef
MILANO MODA UOMO
Pitti