Pitti Uomo, Florence’s twice-yearly trade show and a must stop for everyone who’s anyone in the men’s fashion industry, has launched E-Pitti.com, an extension of Uomo, as well as their women’s trade show, Pitti W.
This virtual trade show features a “live” archive of photos and videos from the collections showcased last June. There are over 60,000 photos and 1,000 videos currently living on the site, available to those who registered from June’s event.
Running what’s arguably the most important menswear trade show in the world isn’t a tiny task, but that doesn’t fluster Pitti Immagine CEO Raffaello Napoleone. He even took time to speak with us during the fair, which took place in Florence last week. We chatted about the history of Pitti, why he chose two Los Angeles-based designers to lead this season’s program, and where to go in Florence for a bit of peace and quiet.
For their site-specific event at Pitti Immagine, which took place last night, the Rodarte sisters–Kate and Laura Mulleavy–chose an empty building in central Florence. This served as a space for 10 couture-quality gowns, inspired by Fra Angelico’s frescoes in the monks’ cells at the Convent of San Marco, as well as Bernini’s The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa. The tiny rooms–set up like cells–featured strobe lights and classical music such as “Pachelbel’s Canon,” setting a solemn, intense mood. The Mulleavys worked with longtime collaborator, designer Alexandre de Betak, to build the installation.
The capsule, created in Los Angeles, stands apart from the designers’ other collections. “It’s completely separate,” Laura said at a press preview yesterday morning. “We wanted to include what we love about the city, about the fashion.”
FLORENCE–When Scott Sternberg said he was influenced by West Side Story and Singing in the Rain while putting together his Pitti Immagine runway show, I had a feeling there would be some epic musical element to the event, which took place yesterday at sunset on the grounds of an old tobacco factory.
And there was. Not only did it feature music from West Side Story, there were also professional dancers/models who opened and closed the show, launching into it with those famous finger snaps.
FLORENCE–It’s that time of year again. We’ve landed in Italy for Pitti Immagine, the biannual trade show featuring the best of men’s fashion, as well as up-and-coming women’s designers. This season’s highlights include a Band of Outsiders runway show this evening and a Rodarte event tomorrow night, where the sister duo will launch a new collection as well as their first book: Rodarte, Catherine Optie, Alec South.
But as the young ones from Los Angeles prepared to take the stage, Pitti 80 kicked off with a particularly cool exhibition, curated by fashion historian and critic Olivier Saillard, whose most recent work includes the Madame Gres exhibit at the Palais Galliera fashion museum (where he is director). To uniquely highlight several of the standout menswear brands at the fair (including Brunello Cucinelli and Church’s), Saillard envisioned “Dress Like a Man,” a runway show/exhibition where female models twisted and reshaped traditional menswear into body conscious skirts, jackets, and dresses.
The folks behind Pitti Immagine, who put on the renowned Florence-based fashion fairs Pitti Uomo and Pitti W, hosted a luncheon this week to tell fashion editors what’s in store this June.
First off, Pitti Immagine is seriously loving LA this season, as Band of Outsiders‘ Scott Sternberg and Rodarte‘s Kate and Laura Mulleavy are the special guest designers for the men’s and women’s trade shows. Sternberg will present, according to a release, “a multifacted fashion event” on June 15 for Pitti Uomo while the Mulleavy sisters are working on a top-secret site-specific presentation and special collection for Pitti W.
But there’s another headliner at Pitti this June, an indication that the event is making strides to up their web visibility and star-factor: Sarah Jessica Parker and 40 fashion bloggers.
