Pitti Uomo 85: the CM thread

[bings]

^ thread officially ruined

 

[unbelragazzo]

My third day at Pitti started off with an appointment at the Tie Your Tie booth to interview founder Franco Minucci:

Tie Your Tie was a legendary Florentine men's shop and tie manufacturer for thirty years. The Florentine location was bought by Simone Righi, who changed the name to 'Frasi'. So it's a bit odd to see Tie Your Tie with a booth at Pitti but no store in Florence. But from Signor Minucci I was able to get all the Tie Your Tie I could want. We talked...ok, mostly he talked...for about an hour and a half.

From there I went to talk with Antonio (@NickPollica) and see his new collection at Eidos.

This collection was one of the biggest surprises of Pitti for me, and it was a pleasant one. I was expecting kind of an Isaia Lite, which would be nice for people who love Isaia but can't afford it, but not too interesting to write about. Instead it's got a completely different thing going on, with a number of interesting items, including the jacket Antonio is wearing in that picture.

Somehow after walking through Eidos it was already 1pm and time to meet @Synthese for lunch. We waited in line at the buffet like morons while every distant cousin of the guy taking tickets was let in ahead of us. After 15 minutes we finally got through to get some mozzarella and pappardelle before charging back into the Pitti throng.

My first stop on a full stomach was Seraphin...but they wouldn't let me take pictures. But I listened while a Russian customer asked them about their hoodie with an alligator interior on the hood. So maybe it's a little off my beat anyway. The people at the Calabrese booth were fortunately much more accommodating.

The most fun I had all day though, and perhaps the entire fair, was going with Synth to PNP, which is a Florentine store offering what I gather is called "goth ninja." I expected it to be an eye-roller. Actually I ended up with a strong desire for many of their leather jackets. Like maybe this one:

We had to leave after a half-hour or so to meet Stephanie for drinks, but we both wanted to spend a lot more time there, so resolved to return the next day. The store owner Marco promised he would keep the leather jackets safe until then. More to come...

 

[gettoasty]

Eidos peaks my interest. The leather looks nice on you

 

[ltontheqt]

Unbel,
I hope you will write about Jamieson. They are a bit elusive. Their stuff is hard to find, particularly in smaller sizes. Any information about availability would be much appreciated.

 

[unbelragazzo]

^i think you'll be happy on the Jamieson front

 

[burghler]

^+1 I have a couple Jamieson shetlands that I love. Their Fair Isles are the best looking I've seen, especially a couple that are sold at End.

Appreciate the writeups

 

[poorsod]



The most fun I had all day though, and perhaps the entire fair, was going with Synth to PNP, which is a Florentine store offering what I gather is called "goth ninja." I expected it to be an eye-roller. Actually I ended up with a strong desire for many of their leather jackets. Like maybe this one:

We had to leave after a half-hour or so to meet Stephanie for drinks, but we both wanted to spend a lot more time there, so resolved to return the next day. The store owner Marco promised he would keep the leather jackets safe until then. More to come...

Ninja goth conservative business dress actually looks kinda cool in a nerdy SF way. I like it.

 

[unbelragazzo]

@Synthese already summed up our dinner experience here:

Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!

Pitti Uomo: Day 3, pt. 2: A Long Night
​

David and I leave the hotel and head to Luisaviaroma, where 99% of everything is ****. Saint Laurent is the shittiest of the ****, and when David asks me if I can think of anyone who would wear it, I’m stumped. It is evehatn worse in person than in photos.

We check out the sneaker wall, and talk about Lanvin captoes and Kris Van Krazy Laces, both of which David likes. Then he shows me everything that’s wrong with all of the suits they carry. The only one that receives any kind of approval is a midnight blue Armani wool/silk/elastane suit that he says he would wear out the door to dinner.

After that we head to PN\P Firenze, and meet Marco, the owner. I won’t spoil everything that’s to come in our write-up of the store, but we try a lot of stuff on, and David actually looks pretty good squeezed into an MA+ aviator. We have to meet Stephanie, who is Styleforum’s Huddler liaison, at the Baptistery, so we make plans to return the next day for more fun with brands like CCP and Forme d’Expression. We realize en route that “The Baptistery” is actually a pretty large place to meet, but thankfully we spot Stephanie,

The three of us find Prosecco in a quiet, completely empty bar that offers R&B lounge music and complimentary bland pieces of food for you to stab with toothpicks. Prosecco comes. I pull out my phone, because I have a terrible memory and need to take notes 24 hours a day if I want anything to stay in my brain.

We toast ourselves. I wonder if Stephanie is happy to be forced into the company of two sweaty dudes who like clothes and talking about shoe construction (David liked the Goodyear-welted Guidi boots – I don’t blame him).

We talk about sales, as it’s kind of our lowest common denominator. It's almost interesting. I mean, it’s not, but we’re trying. We get another glass of Prosecco. We talk money, page views, Streetwear and Menswear. David says there's more ‘herding’ in CM. I feel vindicated.

“Want to watch David try on $5000 leather jacket?” I ask Stephanie

“Maybe if it's a full leather suit,” she says

“You bring the whip,” he says

Christ.

Greg arrives in a storm of infuriatingly complimentary patterns and orders a beer. He shows us his phone, which is frantically advertising his August birthday for some reason.

Tired of bland things on sticks, we talk dinner. David’s taking us to a place he’s been every year for the last two or three or ten years, or however often it is. It turns out that he’s really useful to have whether you want directions or want to chat with a store owner. He speaks Italian very well; to the delight of everyone we meet. Plus, when I am with a guy in a suit and a tie I am treated less like a potential criminal and more like a curiosity.

David tells us the bistecca at this joint is famoso, or whatever they say in Italian. I know enough French that I can follow 80% of conversations, which is just enough to get me incredibly confused. Stephanie has an app for that, she says, and proceeds to show it to us.

“Want to share my bistecca?” Greg asks me, while we wait for a table. And wait. And keep waiting. The host gives us more Prosecco as an apology. He is incredibly Italian. There’s a table for six that they’re holding for a reservation from forty minutes ago.

We hold out for our seats, and make small talk about I don’t know what. Wooster is here, mustache reaching for the heavens, so it must be good. He's shorter than I expect, which I should have expected. I take a picture of the three of them drinking Prosecco. Greg looks miserable.

Finally, we are seated. “You have to eat for six now,” says the waiter.

“We’ll eat for six,” says Greg, and then points at me. “He’ll drink for six.” What?

The menu comes. “Is Styleforum paying for this?” I ask. Stephanie says that Huddler is, because this is business.

Game on.

Mozzarella di buffola, ravioli, spaghetti, papparedelle, osso buco, bistecca, salads of shaved raw artichoke and pecorino. I don’t think we’re going to go hungry. Stephanie is adamant that Huddler is carrying the tab, but her voice quivers a little bit.

Somehow I end up in charge of the wine list. I know nothing about wine, except how to drink it. I try to keep the waiter below what I think is a reasonable price, and we settle on something that he completely ignores. Minutes later he reappears with a magnum of something I'm sure I can't afford. Greg reminds us that he doesn’t drink wine. I thought the French were cultured? Stephanie is already getting nervous.

This is how you make friends, right?. Just maybe not with Huddler.

The mozzarella comes. It's the best ******* mozzarella I've ever eaten. I'm not kidding. It's transcendent. Ovolini and ballini – I have to ask the waiter about the big ones.

“Balls. Bull’s balls,” he says.

Greg's artichoke (yes, we share) is also delicious. Wooster is outside with his posse, smoking a cigarette. I take an awkward window photo of him, because I’m a journalist.

The ravioli comes. It is full of spinach and ricotta, served with deep-fried crisp sage leaves. Greg asks if you can eat that part. I begin to doubt that he is actually French. He has ordered, for the third night, spicy spaghetti with bacon. “Whenever there's bacon in it I get it,” he says. The man is obsessed with meat.

Stephanie looks more nervous. Unlike David, she actually does look like someone I went to college with, and this time I know exactly who. At least we didn't order truffles, which feature in all of tonight’s special dishes. Everyone is making penis jokes. We have fallen so far. The magnum seems to still be very full.

Greg gets denied by Junya over dinner. Wooster is gone, having never, to our knowledge, eaten anything. This does not change my opinion of the food.

“I always save room for dessert,” says Greg. “It's a life philosophy. Think about it.” I do think about it, and I write it down, too.

People are taking pictures of the host. I resolve to do so as well. I forgot my chapstick. No, I didn't. A guy in a bloggable hat walks by.

Osso buco comes, a monstrous serving. There is saffron in the sauce. I luxuriate in Venusian rice and tender meat. I am in heaven. My food has less structure than a Barena jacket. I film the arrival of Greg’s bistecca, which he is sharing with Stephanie, who looks slightly less worried now that the wine is three-quarters empty. The video is incoherent; the only identifiable portions are the arrival of the meat, Greg breaking down and taking an iPhoto of it like a goddamn foodie, and my disembodied voice telling him it’s a bistecca worthy of his beard.

I have some of Greg's meat. “I told you that you could have some of my bistecca,” he says. I pretend I don’t see him raise his eyebrow.

David is at halftime on his osso buco. “I've only had two bites,” I say, contemplating the ravioli in my stomach, which is itself nestled atop a pillar of finest buffala milk.

“How?” he says. “It’s so good!”

“I was distracted by Greg's meat,” I say. The bistecca is the size of a small baby.

“It's very distracting,” Stephanie says. She and Greg are sharing, but I wouldn’t read anything into it.

I ask Stephanie if she likes reading SF. She says yes but it sounds like a lie. Osso buco is stuck in my teeth. We are talking about mothering forums now, which is also something that Huddler does.

My bone marrow is delicious. I have finished half of my veal. I am not sure I will live through the other half.

“This is madness,” I say, then pause. “This is Pitti!”

“#Nailed it,” says David. We fist bump.

More food is eaten. Stephanie and Greg have made no visible progress on their meat baby. It is looming, bloody and triumphant.

“Pitti is like a bistecca,” I say. At the time it sounds philosophical, and everyone nods thoughtfully, but I can’t remember what my reasoning was.

The waiter asks if we want dessert.

“Yes,” says Greg, “I saved room.”

No one can finish the bistecca. My rice is untouched. I am a failure. I have let myself down. I have let Styleforum down. I have let down all of Italy.

The waiter wants to know what to do with the leftover steak. He offers it to Greg, who refuses. He offers it to Stephanie, for breakfast. She says no. He insists.

“No,” says Stephanie, “I leave tomorrow.”

I know that she doesn’t leave tomorrow because we just talked about it.

“You leave tomorrow?!” I say. The waiter looks at me.

“Oh, I get it,” I tell the table, and fall silent. I am a master of tact.

“You got baited into that one,” says David. “By someone who is very good a baiting. What would you call someone who is an expert at baiting?”

I refuse to answer.

The dessert menu arrives. Stephanie fiddles with her hair. It’s too late, I think to myself. Espresso is her only concession. I think I got my hair cut too recently. I should have done it far earlier, so it would have been nice and shaggy for Pitti. No one will blog it now. Someone on Styleforum says it looks like David’s, and that is unacceptable. I have an image to preserve.

Greg says that Italian dessert is only one step above Chinese dessert. I am only familiar with fortune cookies, but I like my crème caramel. Which is French.
He may have a point.

Limoncello is provided. David trades Stephanie for a sip of his grappa. So it begins.

There is an awkward silence when the drinks are gone. Why? We need more liquor, probably.

Stephanie says her phone doesn't work. She pulls it out. It won’t connect to any networks, and she can’t use it for anything.

“Does anyone want to service this for me?” she says.

“Whoa,” I say.

“That's you, J,” says David.

“Whoa,” I say.

The wine is almost finished. The bill comes. I watch Stephanie's face very carefully. She doesn't even look at it, and instead shows us all a picture of Harrison, her cockapoo.

We talk about Insane Clown Posse as the waiter takes Stephanie’s money.

“Why do they call them juggalos?” I say.

David makes a juggling motion and says "clowns juggle.” Years of confusion are annihilated in an instant.

Time to pee. I head downstairs, where I’m relieved to see that we’re not the only ones left in the restaurant. I can’t find the toilet, and have to walk back up, embarrassed. A waitress leads me all the way to the bathroom door. The band that's playing sounds like Metric but in Italian.

When I come back, David says that he saw Bubbles from The Wire in Vegas. I have no idea who that is.

“I thought you meant bubbles from Trailer Park Boys.” Says Stephanie

“I thought you meant bubbles from Power Puff Girls,” I say.

My phone dies as we take a final picture of the servers.

We wander around, and it turns out that Greg’s hotel bar is closed. So we go to Gilli, which is insane, though not as insane is it looked the night before, when I walked past it on my way home to Mr. ******* Pizza.

We walk in. We order drinks. We take the drinks coupon to the bartenders, who are in tailcoats. One of them has a mustache that would be perfect for Pitti. Gilli is a wonderful place; both incredibly expensive while at the same time impressively unfriendly. Gin and tonic for Stephanie and me, rum for Greg. Communicating the idea of “rum” to the bartender proves weirdly difficult. David is not paying attention, so I order him Jack Daniels, no ice. Gotta keep the theme running, here.

We talk, we drink, it’s crowded. Famous people are there. Or at least that’s what Greg says. He could be ******* with me. I would have no idea.

David is the first to succumb to fatigue and common sense, shortly followed by Greg. Both of them leave their drinks. Stephanie and I herd them into our corral of liquor. By this point I have borrowed a pen and am scribbling on napkins. I have already forgotten most of dinner, and when I look down at what I’ve written on the crumpled paper I don’t expect that I’ll be able to read any of it in the morning.

Stephanie and I elect to have another drink. I suggest the Mario, which is what the bartender is currently making for someone else. Mario comes. He is bitter.

“I’ve been needing Tums lately,” says Stephanie. I nod sagely. We talk about Styleforum and Pitti and how ridiculous it is, and Stephanie, who is beginning to slur ever so slightly, assures me that I am doing a “great job.” We talk about the affiliate dinner, and how unfortunate it is that Stephanie missed all the fun. She asks who attended; I tell her.

“Kirby’s wife is a ******* bombshell,” she says. Everything else is, I assure her, off the record.

“She’s out-of-this-world hotness,” she says. “Really off the record.”

I make a note of this on my napkin. Stephanie crosses it out. I write “Off the record.”

I hear an English accent behind us and introduce myself. It’s Scottish, actually, but his friend is English, from Yorkshire.

“I used to live in Yorkshire,” I say, getting very excited. I hand him a card and spill my drink on both him and his friend. Perfect. I’m glad that Stephanie has taken this opportunity to go to the bathroom. I apologize to the two men, and they laugh it off but make a joke about sending me a dry cleaning bill. I think it’s a joke, at least. Hopefully they threw away my card. Styleforum is making an excellent showing at Pitti this year.

Stephanie reappears, hiccupping.

“Don’t misquote me,” she says. “Kirby’s wife is a ******* bombshell.”

She thinks for a minute. “I want to see that bodacious babe.” This time, she’s actually talking about the Birth of Venus and her reservation at the Uffizi on Saturday.

I see the Scotsman in the bathroom, and we both agree that David Moyes is having a terrible time of it this season. I think he’s just being polite.

Back at the bar, Stephanie is making a face at her drink, which really is quite bitter. For some reason, she decides to squeeze a lemon into it. The bartender winces and tries to stop her, but he is too late. This does not make Mario taste better.

“Super Mario,” she calls it. The bartender, who maybe even looks like a taller, thinner Super Mario, finds this very funny.

She tries to pass it off to her neighbor, who refuses. Disaster.

The neighbor and his friend introduce themselves. They make socks, or something like that. I wonder if they are in favor of child labor laws. The bar has really thinned out. We don’t want to talk about socks. They ask Stephanie what’s in her drink. She starts showing them her app for Italian. No one knows why.

Eventually, they leave.

The bartender adds soda to Stephanie’s drink, which doesn’t help things.

“Super Mario is the winner,” he says. Stephanie tries to laugh.

They kick us out at some point; by which I mean that we take a hint when the garbage bags appear, and we leave on an unintentional tour of Il Duomo, passing a not-so-young couple who are lying on the steps of a very old building but are, thankfully, clothed.

We part ways shortly thereafter, but Stephanie’s confused gesticulations and declarations that she’s “pretty sure” that she’s on the right street make me wonder if she’s going to survive the uneven paving stones.

I pass the lovebirds on the way back to my hotel, where the concierge is surprisingly chipper. He never changes, though, and I doubt that he’s really all that happy to see me. It seems pretty late. I find my room and look at my phone. It’s 5:15.

But a couple of corrections:

1) After you take off the VAT, that leather jacket is actually more like $3300, which is really not more than the bespoke suits I get, and perhaps I would wear it more often than some of those. This does not include the cost of the other clothes I'd need to buy in order to make it look good. Although, as this thread has proved, I might not consider other clothing strictly necessary.

2) I was the one who said that Synth would be drinking for 6. I was actually wrong, but I should have said he'll be drinking until 6, in which case I would have been right.

In other news, halfway through our meal Greg told me that Will of A Suitable Wardrobe was at the table next to us the whole time. Somehow I failed to notice and greet him, which is a shame because I enjoyed meeting Will over a drink at Pitti last year. Will, if you're reading this, accept my apologies. This was not a cut.

Also, I forgot to mention...while I was still at Pitti, I got a tour of the Cantarelli booth from one of their experts. The theme was "stile ricercato" which is kind of like "WANTED: STYLE" in the way it would be written on a poster nailed to the front door of a Wild West saloon. They lined the walls of their booth with pictures of Italian-American gangsters. They have some nice jackets, that don't seem to have particularly much to do with the guys in the pictures. Also it makes the booth look like a closet full of gangsters hiding out behind a #menswear wardrobe while policemen search the house:

 

[dieworkwear]

Does this leather jacket development mean you'll finally buy jeans?

 

[poorsod]

Some shots from Pitti courtesy of Street Fashion.

http://streetfsn.blogspot.com/2014/01/pitti-uomo-round3.html

This is a good Wooster look

Is this Braddock?

whnay.'s friend has great hats.

Proof Pitti ain't just for men.

 

[unbelragazzo]



Does this leather jacket development mean you'll finally buy jeans?

Actually I did get a pair of jeans about a year ago that I wear occasionally. But I have a feeling they wouldn't be the jeans that I should wear with that jacket.

 

[dieworkwear]



Actually I did get a pair of jeans about a year ago that I wear occasionally. But I have a feeling they wouldn't be the jeans that I should wear with that jacket.

These?

 

[unbelragazzo]

No I think those jeans would actually be perfect with that leather jacket

 

[Journeyman]



Some shots from Pitti courtesy of Street Fashion.



Is this Braddock?

I don't know who Braddock is, but that is (IMHO) a pretty awful briefcase. Apart from the interesting and unusual colour, it looks like the kind of bag that you'd find in a discount luggage shop at your local mall.

 

[FlyingMonkey]

Some shots from Pitti courtesy of Street Fashion.

http://streetfsn.blogspot.com/2014/01/pitti-uomo-round3.html

Is this Braddock?

Looks like it, yes.