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So apparently I lied about this summer's theme being PittiColor. It's actually PittiColor!. What's PittiColor!? Glad you asked:
There are also these cranes off to the side spraying primary colors on everyone, like some kind of nerve gas in a paint ball battle:
I know your next question is, "won't that get all over everybody's clothes?" Don't worry, Pitti says, after some boilerplate about color and fashion, the spray will "leave no traces on your clothes or property":
I avoided that area anyway, just to be safe. Maybe other people did the same thing, because by morning of Day 2 they had stopped spraying.
I usually like to spend Day 1 just walking around the parts of the fair that have the stuff I'm most interested in (the Central Pavilion and the two buildings to the West of it) and visiting with brands I already know and like. I think Pitti is organized to facilitate this strategy. The fair is so huge that no one could possibly see all the brands in four days. Most people have at least three or four brands they definitely want to see. So just as advertisers want to buy TV spots for shows that are watched by their customers, each brand wants a booth near other brands that attract likely customers. So you've got La Vera Sartoria Napoletana near Kiton, Buttero near Monitaly, Alden near Heschung, etc.. Of course, not everyone can be put in the perfect slot, but the general idea is to make browsing more efficient.
My first stop was La Portegna, mostly because LP impresario Jose Urrutia usually has interesting stuff to say, although most of it is unprintable, or even unpostable. He and his lovely colleague Laeticia did a really bang-up job of hiding their disappointment that Jasper was not with me, and showed me some shoes that they've recently started making:
They're kind of Vans slip-ons up top, espadrilles in the middle, and then leather-soled dress shoe below:
As I've mentioned in Pitti coverage before, Pitti is more of a trade show than a press event. Brands have different reasons for coming to Pitti, but most are here principally to sell. If those brands are doing well, you'll see them doing a lot of this:
That's Graziana Inglese of G. Inglese, and Greg Lellouche of No Man Walks Alone (where I also blog). Graziana is smiling because Greg is ordering a lot of good stuff. This is a pretty typical booth setup - you can see the styles available laid out below the table and to Greg's right. These samples show the different collar styles, cuff styles, and the quality of production. Then there are fabric samples - the stack that Greg is looking through. For a brand like Inglese, the styles change little from season to season. A new "collection" is mostly just a new batch of available fabrics. Most retailers stick to two or three styles, and then choose new fabrics to make in those styles every season.
Here's another example, this time with @Sander and @Braddock of Shibumi putting in a sock order with Bresciani (whom I wrote about a couple of years ago).
You probably want to know what people are wearing. I can tell you one thing no one is wearing: socks. You could line up all the socks at Pitti toe to top and not have enough rope to hang yourself with. And that's even counting the socks worn by me, @gdl203, and @EFV.
There are also a lot of double-breasted jackets, usually worn unbuttoned. The Rules of Classic Style prohibit the wearing of a double-breasted jacket unbuttoned, also known as The Letterman. The reason is that the extra fabric hangs limp, like a defunct garden gate. This is not an issue for most of the unbuttoned DBs at Pitti for the simple reason that there is no extra fabric. The jackets are so tight I doubt they could even be buttoned in the traditional manner. It's essentially a peak lapeled single-breasted jacket, with a row of buttons on each side of two facing rows of buttonholes. Since buttonhole can't attach to buttonhole (although videos of nubile women attempting this feat constitute a large share of Internet pr0n sites), the jacket must be worn unbuttoned.
I wore the Musella suit that I mentioned in my earlier post. EFV took a picture:
I won't bore you with the shortcomings of the Airbnb I foolishly chose for my stay in Florence. But that is the face of a sleepless night. Ignore that and look at the suit, which, whether you like it or not, is different from most of the other Naples-inspired jackets you'll see worn at Pitti. While the Neapolitan silhouette is rounded, this one is a sharp inverted triangle. Instead of the drape being pushed out to the sides of the chest, it is folded diagonally across the chest. Although the jacket's construction is light, the shoulder is quite extended - more so than any other jacket I own. These features together with the wide, bellied lapels make a silhouette that I find quite aggressive, and a little bit vintage.
I saw Erik and the Cad and Dandy dudes on my way out of the fair:
John, the C&D gent second from the left, is wearing trousers made of Caccioppoli jacketing, which I recognized immediately as the same fabric NMWA gobbled up for a run of sport coats. John told me it was his first time wearing these pants, so he didn't yet have a report on the fabric's trouserability.
As the fair started shutting down for the day, I went to the Four Seasons hotel (their Florence property is one of the most stunning hotels I've seen) for an 'Evening Excellence' event put on by Alex Dordevic of DeGorsi Luxury Consulting with Sciamat and Ducal. I have always liked the idea of having different clothes for evening. The passing of the tuxedo has left a vacuum in evening wear that I don't think has been filled yet. I thought this Sciamat shawl DB was an elegant proposal:
As well as these Ducal pumps:
which were imploringly described to me as "masculine, not gay." In any case, they are Blake-stitched (Goodyear welting being an absurdity on such a shoe). I found the woven ones particularly attractive.
Ironically, this evening excellence event left me without time to change for evening, which the Shibumi guys as well as EFV had done before I met them at an event sponsored by Plaza Uomo, a menswear magazine in Sweden. @Sander informed that this gentleman with the long hair was "not the editor but maybe the owner or founder or something":
On my way to dinner I passed by the Golden Balls restaurant:
And then sat down in front of a picture of Michael Caine and did my Michael Caine impersonation while enjoying prosciutto and melone, followed by a very nice rigatoni.
Without @Leaves here to press vodka shots on me until the wee hours, I returned to my infernal Airbnb apartment to get some rest before Day 2.
Follow all of Styleforum's Pitti Uomo 88 coverage.
There are also these cranes off to the side spraying primary colors on everyone, like some kind of nerve gas in a paint ball battle:
I know your next question is, "won't that get all over everybody's clothes?" Don't worry, Pitti says, after some boilerplate about color and fashion, the spray will "leave no traces on your clothes or property":
I avoided that area anyway, just to be safe. Maybe other people did the same thing, because by morning of Day 2 they had stopped spraying.
I usually like to spend Day 1 just walking around the parts of the fair that have the stuff I'm most interested in (the Central Pavilion and the two buildings to the West of it) and visiting with brands I already know and like. I think Pitti is organized to facilitate this strategy. The fair is so huge that no one could possibly see all the brands in four days. Most people have at least three or four brands they definitely want to see. So just as advertisers want to buy TV spots for shows that are watched by their customers, each brand wants a booth near other brands that attract likely customers. So you've got La Vera Sartoria Napoletana near Kiton, Buttero near Monitaly, Alden near Heschung, etc.. Of course, not everyone can be put in the perfect slot, but the general idea is to make browsing more efficient.
My first stop was La Portegna, mostly because LP impresario Jose Urrutia usually has interesting stuff to say, although most of it is unprintable, or even unpostable. He and his lovely colleague Laeticia did a really bang-up job of hiding their disappointment that Jasper was not with me, and showed me some shoes that they've recently started making:
They're kind of Vans slip-ons up top, espadrilles in the middle, and then leather-soled dress shoe below:
As I've mentioned in Pitti coverage before, Pitti is more of a trade show than a press event. Brands have different reasons for coming to Pitti, but most are here principally to sell. If those brands are doing well, you'll see them doing a lot of this:
That's Graziana Inglese of G. Inglese, and Greg Lellouche of No Man Walks Alone (where I also blog). Graziana is smiling because Greg is ordering a lot of good stuff. This is a pretty typical booth setup - you can see the styles available laid out below the table and to Greg's right. These samples show the different collar styles, cuff styles, and the quality of production. Then there are fabric samples - the stack that Greg is looking through. For a brand like Inglese, the styles change little from season to season. A new "collection" is mostly just a new batch of available fabrics. Most retailers stick to two or three styles, and then choose new fabrics to make in those styles every season.
Here's another example, this time with @Sander and @Braddock of Shibumi putting in a sock order with Bresciani (whom I wrote about a couple of years ago).
You probably want to know what people are wearing. I can tell you one thing no one is wearing: socks. You could line up all the socks at Pitti toe to top and not have enough rope to hang yourself with. And that's even counting the socks worn by me, @gdl203, and @EFV.
There are also a lot of double-breasted jackets, usually worn unbuttoned. The Rules of Classic Style prohibit the wearing of a double-breasted jacket unbuttoned, also known as The Letterman. The reason is that the extra fabric hangs limp, like a defunct garden gate. This is not an issue for most of the unbuttoned DBs at Pitti for the simple reason that there is no extra fabric. The jackets are so tight I doubt they could even be buttoned in the traditional manner. It's essentially a peak lapeled single-breasted jacket, with a row of buttons on each side of two facing rows of buttonholes. Since buttonhole can't attach to buttonhole (although videos of nubile women attempting this feat constitute a large share of Internet pr0n sites), the jacket must be worn unbuttoned.
I wore the Musella suit that I mentioned in my earlier post. EFV took a picture:
I won't bore you with the shortcomings of the Airbnb I foolishly chose for my stay in Florence. But that is the face of a sleepless night. Ignore that and look at the suit, which, whether you like it or not, is different from most of the other Naples-inspired jackets you'll see worn at Pitti. While the Neapolitan silhouette is rounded, this one is a sharp inverted triangle. Instead of the drape being pushed out to the sides of the chest, it is folded diagonally across the chest. Although the jacket's construction is light, the shoulder is quite extended - more so than any other jacket I own. These features together with the wide, bellied lapels make a silhouette that I find quite aggressive, and a little bit vintage.
I saw Erik and the Cad and Dandy dudes on my way out of the fair:
John, the C&D gent second from the left, is wearing trousers made of Caccioppoli jacketing, which I recognized immediately as the same fabric NMWA gobbled up for a run of sport coats. John told me it was his first time wearing these pants, so he didn't yet have a report on the fabric's trouserability.
As the fair started shutting down for the day, I went to the Four Seasons hotel (their Florence property is one of the most stunning hotels I've seen) for an 'Evening Excellence' event put on by Alex Dordevic of DeGorsi Luxury Consulting with Sciamat and Ducal. I have always liked the idea of having different clothes for evening. The passing of the tuxedo has left a vacuum in evening wear that I don't think has been filled yet. I thought this Sciamat shawl DB was an elegant proposal:
As well as these Ducal pumps:
which were imploringly described to me as "masculine, not gay." In any case, they are Blake-stitched (Goodyear welting being an absurdity on such a shoe). I found the woven ones particularly attractive.
Ironically, this evening excellence event left me without time to change for evening, which the Shibumi guys as well as EFV had done before I met them at an event sponsored by Plaza Uomo, a menswear magazine in Sweden. @Sander informed that this gentleman with the long hair was "not the editor but maybe the owner or founder or something":
On my way to dinner I passed by the Golden Balls restaurant:
And then sat down in front of a picture of Michael Caine and did my Michael Caine impersonation while enjoying prosciutto and melone, followed by a very nice rigatoni.
Without @Leaves here to press vodka shots on me until the wee hours, I returned to my infernal Airbnb apartment to get some rest before Day 2.
Follow all of Styleforum's Pitti Uomo 88 coverage.
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