FLORENCE — Mayor Matteo Renzi spelled out a message that could be applied to men’s fashion as much as to this city of ancient buildings of historic beauty.
“We love our past — but the real challenge is to love our future,” said Mr. Renzi, adding that Florence today is a city of division that needs a vision.
The story from Pitti Uomo, the twice-yearly men’s fashion fair, was more upbeat: On the closing day Friday, Raffaello Napoleoni, chief executive of Pitti Immagine and its many cultural and commercial activities, said that although there was a slight fall in Italian buyers due to the spluttering economy, international visitors were up by just over 5 percent.
The powerful success of men’s wear in emerging markets since the new millennium represents both solace and a dilemma. At the trade fair, buyers are looking for the essence of men’s wear Italian-style: fine (but often innovative) fabrics, dynamic cut and an overall sense of luxury and fine living.
As the Caruso brand put it at the fair, in its witty presentation of men of different ethnic types carrying boards that said in their languages: “In men’s wear, do as the Italians do.”
Thoughtful fashion companies know that they cannot live off classics without renewing them, and that fashion has to have its roots in its heritage and tradition.
Perhaps the story was best expressed at Brunello Cucinelli, not just by the painterly mixes of blue from inky dark to pale winter sky, and by the fabric research that gave a new light weight to classics, but to the photographs on the wall. They were behind the tactile tweeds and softly fitted jackets and showed different generations interacting: grandmother and granddaughter and the male equivalent.
“I want people to think about the family liaisons,” said Mr. Cucinelli, whose clothes could be defined as for all ages, with the wearer adapting to suit.
Another way of looking at the current picture is that what once seemed old now feels fresh again. Erik Bjerkesjo, in his first runway show, held in the gilded salon of the Polimoda fashion school, actually included black satin that had been hoarded by his grandmother in the 1930s and used the tailoring skills he learned from his mother. The combination of the designer’s Swedish origins, the films of Ingmar Bergman and shoes inspired by ice skating, were an exemplary mix of imagination and experience, woven into modern design.
The Pitti fair, with its overwhelming choices of clothing types, always seems to hit the heart of the matter — as in a homage in the central forecourt to books, those dear departing paper versions with titles like “The Great Civilization” or “Cathedrals of the World” — all abandoned in a heap on the ground.
But the clothes on offer were not nostalgic, with rich, bright colors prevailing for winter 2013.
There is also a dry-eyed, even enthusiastic, acceptance of online buying, as opposed to brick-and-mortar shopping.
Curating creativity was the subject of a discussion initiated by Pitti Immagine with thecorner.com, the luxury online site powered by the YOOX Group.
As if providing the answer to every man’s (and maybe woman’s) dream, the fashion writer Angelo Flaccavento set out to create a unique and “ideal” wardrobe, choosing iconic pieces from different labels: shirts in the family tradition from G. Inglese, a Mackintosh raincoat or a Borsalino hat.
The discussion included editorial ways of styling, the influence of bloggers, and the power of images taken from the “catwalk” of the street. It all suggested that while absorbing the new media and personal sartorial visions, curating a closet is key to looking and feeling good.
Thinking of the future, not just its overwhelming Florentine past, Pitti Immagine has always looked outside its own Italian comfort zone.
While Ermanno Scervino came back from Milan to his native Florence to show his women’s and men’s wear in the famous Salone dei Cinquecento in the Palazzo Vecchio, he represented the more classic and elegant style of Italy, with beautifully crafted clothes. The only wild shot was in the digital lighting reflected on Giorgio Vasari’s monumental battle frescoes.
By contrast, Andrea Pompilio made an overeager exploration of pattern and color at his show in the Stazione Leopolda, although when the women’s wear switched to men’s, the clothes were often charming. There were smart mixes of colors and a sense of a down-to-earth world where the men carried bags filled with fresh produce.
Kenzo, the Paris-based brand founded by a Japanese designer, went back to its Asian roots with its current creative directors Humberto Leon and Carol Lim.
“We decided to approach the jungle — and what is above us,” said Mr. Leon, referring to the puffs of white cloud printed on cyberspace blue that opened the collection, while the show’s venue above a food market represented the importance the Asian world gives to food.
The result was sportswear with a puffy feel, tempered by sharp geometric lines; or streamlined coats and suits where the clouds, perhaps in red on black or red with blue, brought an airy feeling to more formal clothes. The show suggested that the designers are giving the Kenzo brand a new aesthetic, touched with Asian vision but with an international attitude.
For Maison Kitsuné, a Paris-based company founded by the music producer Gildas Loaëc and the Japanese architect Masaya Kuroki, the show — rather than the clothes — was the focus. The music included two Scandinavian singers (well suited to a Pitti W women’s season promoting designers from Copenhagen fashion week) and also Citizens!, a London band whose music was as hip and modern as their suits were from a 1950s past.
With music loud enough to rock the frescoed ceiling of the ancient palazzo, the Maison Kitsuné “happening” offered just the required meld of glorious past with cool future.
IHT Rendezvous: Florence and Its Men's Wear Future
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IHT Rendezvous: Florence and Its Men's Wear Future
