The Pittilogues: Pitti Uomo 87, Day 2

[Rosenrot]

Oh God I'm so slow with my writing, but here we go.

Day 2​

I woke up at seven in the morning - this time because of my default alarm setting (bollocks!) - still very much drunk. Not good. I have never had a hangover in my entire life because in the extremely rare instance I overdrink, my stomach will empty its contents and I go back to square one. I was determined not to break my record so I went back to bed hoping my head would recalibrate in the next couple of hours.

_____________________________________

The night before we had a wonderful dinner together with SF affiliates and friends. I was sat with Stephanie the awesome SF marketing lady and the crew of Monitaly/Yuketen. Yuki - the founder - is a Japanese who has been living in the US for umm.. forever and has a penchant for Native American jewellery. Over the main course he regaled his adventures that included jumping off a boat and swimming across the sea. Fok didn’t believe him. I think I do.

Dinner lasted until eleven pm and I would have been happy to feel the softness of my pillow there and then. Instead I found myself joining the contingent in search for a watering hole. Under the guidance of Skoaktiebolaget’s squad we ended up at a low-key Irish bar whose peace and quiet was shattered by our not-so-sober group. Many shots were involved. I mouthed along to what I could only guess was a Swedish drinking song.

_____________________________________

I dragged my heavy head off the pillow four hours later sans headache (yasss gurl yasss!), showered and rushed off to the Fortezza. Despite the weariness I still had enough enthusiasm to put on my tight Junya biker over a Julius mohair cardigan that kept brushing the ground. It took me thirty minutes to get dressed. No outfit decision could be made swiftly when one’s head was swimming just hours earlier.

Jasper and David were typing away on their laptops when I met them in the Press room. Good Lord I’ve written nothing yesterday. Luckily neither of them noticed the shame creeping in my head. David appeared fresh despite rocking out to 90s high school anthems last night while downing shots. Jasper gave me the impression that he had had enough of people, that and the world in general. He notified me of his intention to only work for three hours. I was more than happy to oblige, so off we went to talk to people and look at stuff.

Since the first day I’d noticed that the classic menswear stuff made up a smaller share of the Pitti line up than I thought. We explored various other halls housing all sorts of labels and aesthetics. In ‘Urban Panorama’ there were strange names like Boom Bap Wear (wut), Moonboots (literally selling moonboots, talk about hitting a niched segment), familiar ones like Converse, Superga, and Crocs, of all brands. Models, loud dance music, bright lights; everything I’d associate with Paris Hilton was under that roof. I came out feeling glittery and all neon like. Rather shaken to be honest.

These smaller venues were situated at the opposite side from the main Uomo pavilion. I noticed that the outfits of the attendees evolved significantly the further we walked away from it. Less Sprezzatura, more *******, which peaked at the ‘Unconventional’ hall. According to the Pitti guidebook, Unconventional was ‘the new project dedicated to luxury underground styles blah blah strong personality blah blah corrosive impact rule-breaking unorthodox yada yada’. Not the worst copywriting we’d come across in this event, sadly. As soon as we entered the venue my sight was assaulted by none other than Hood by ******* Air. That explained the A$AP Rocky lookalikes.




A DJ was installed near the entrance, spinning more offensively loud music. Someone should have told the organising committee that loudness doesn’t correlate with unorthodoxy and strength of personality. I pittied the designers who had to endure the racket all week long. We brushed past Hood by Air’s stand - puzzling over a giant baby pink coat emblazoned with HBA all over it (Jasper: What’s the point of this brand again?) - to check out Isabel Benenato’s next to it.

Well here’s a familiar sight. Chunky uneven knits, oiled leathers, asymmetrical jackets, allblackerrrthing. We also spoke to a hatmaker (Reinhard Plank) or rather its representative, and a shoemaker (The Last Conspiracy), taking lots of photos in between while discussing the Owens and Wang effect. At first glance, many of the labels in this hall came across as derivatives of Rick Owens’s various lines, or the usual ‘artisanal’ culprits that one can find in PN/P. After taking a closer look, my opinion barely changed. I didn’t see it as a bad thing, they did make beautiful garments and accessories, but I wasn’t jumping out of my Ann boots either. As jaded as I was, I felt that there were one or two designers worth mentioning and I hope to do just that in a more in-depth article.








Shortly after we got agitated by the annoying loud music that made it difficult to have a decent conversation. We left the hall feeling mentally drained from the hubbub. That’s the thing I remember most vividly about Pitti. It was a constant onslaught on your visual and auditory senses, sucking the living energy out of you every single minute you spent within the walls of the fortress. And the huge number of people, jaysus. Every third person was inevitably jostling for your attention with their colourful suits and perfectly tucked-in gloves in the pockets, that or giant orange moon boots, Pharrell William hat (there were several of them!) and various iterations of skirts/butt flaps. Sometime later we left the Fortezza, with me feeling mentally drained. To think that it was only the second day.

 

[robinsongreen68]

Good stuff Rosenrot! I'm enjoying this thread a lot but overall it paints a milquetoast-ish picture of writers/academics/'creatives' (lol). i mean can you imagine going to a trade fair and dealing with shippers, setting up stall, standing there all day dealing with buyers/press, all the while wondering if you are going to earn back any of the many many thousands you have laid out to be there..

Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!

i have turned into moo

 

[brad-t]

I don't understand how it paints a "milquetoast picture of writers/academics/creatives," can you elaborate?

 

[robinsongreen68]

eh, just that everyone appears so exhausted/overwhelmed all the time, when all they really have to do is...wander around and take a few notes?

Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!

i'm kidding, i'd be far worse, but it is quite funny given that at least two of these guys aspire to jobs like interstellar mercenary/zombie apocalypse survivor

 

[LA Guy]

Good stuff Rosenrot! I'm enjoying this thread a lot but overall it paints a milquetoast-ish picture of writers/academics/'creatives' (lol). i mean can you imagine going to a trade fair and dealing with shippers, setting up stall, standing there all day dealing with buyers/press, all the while wondering if you are going to earn back any of the many many thousands you have laid out to be there..
i have turned into moo

So, I've been on both sides of the line, and both are tiring. It's been a long time since I've sat at a booth all day, but I still do run these Styleforum Trunk Shows, which are a significant investment of both money and time. Ime, that is actually more tiring than working a booth, because you don't have someone else doing a bulk of your PR, and you have no help setting up, and if the lights don't work right, or there aren't enough snacks, or whatever, you are the one on the line. Having an (relatively) well oiled organization handle a lot of the logistics for you, really helps. At very least, if **** goes south, you have someone to yell at. But I digress.

ime, being press is more tiring. The real difference lies in not having a home base. At a booth, there is always some down time, and during those periods, you can sit, and check your email, or play Angry Birds, or surf the web, and eat your Panini. Usually, there are at least two, and more often, 3+, reps at any booth, so there is always someone there to pick up the slack. Even when you have an appointment, while you are on your feet when you are actually showing the collection, there is still a chunk of time when both you and the buyer are sitting down, looking through linesheets and talking terms. When you are press, you are on your feet all day, and you log a lot of miles. You have to gather enough fodder for your stories, and because you are not buying anything, you have to work around all sorts of people Unlike buyers, and unless you are GQ or Vogue, you also constantly have to explain who you are, what you represent, what type of stories you are writing, etc...

It's certainly not the worst job in the world, but it is tiring and disorienting in the way riding a tilt-a-whirl all day might be.

 

[robinsongreen68]

agreed it's tough on both sides, it was a slightly dumb/drunken comment on my part. i've also done both (used to run an art gallery, was a journalist for years). the main difference is probably the one i mentioned, that as an exhibitor you have considerable underlying anxiety about whether you're going to cover your expenditure. no idea what pitti charges but at somewhere like frieze that is a significant cost.

 

[LA Guy]

agreed it's tough on both sides, it was a slightly dumb/drunken comment on my part. i've also done both (used to run an art gallery, was a journalist for years). the main difference is probably the one i mentioned, that as an exhibitor you have considerable underlying anxiety about whether you're going to cover your expenditure. no idea what pitti charges but at somewhere like frieze that is a significant cost.

Pitti is a funny place. Until this year, when orders seemed to be rolling in, it's always been the common wisdom that you won't get that many orders at Pitti itself, but that you will give out lots of cards and linelists, and of the 200 business cards you collect, 20 will be serious inquiries, and you'll end up with 10 decent sized orders out of that, and that all that will happen 2-3 weeks down the road, when the season has progressed a bit more. A lot of the larger firms seem too look at Pitti as a marketing exercise.

 

[the shah]



eh, just that everyone appears so exhausted/overwhelmed all the time, when all they really have to do is...wander around and take a few notes?

Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!

i'm kidding, i'd be far worse, but it is quite funny given that at least two of these guys aspire to jobs like interstellar mercenary/zombie apocalypse survivor

need to add a sense of drama and exhilaration to the passeggiata fiorentina, otherwise it's no more than dodging clowns whilst documenting what they'll be wearing all at once next near. it's a small bazar with a large potential (small label to put name out, big label to expand influence and exposure) with modern travelogues delivered through familiar vessels (maybe vassals) = content generation.

ultimately not so different from the theater of vacuous marsupials that is paris/milan/london/ny fashion week still desperately grasping to its roots of exclusivity but which in the end dissolves into exhibitions for potential buyers to go in, discuss the same things, negotiate and buy what is needed for their stores. that one is covered by characters such as a small, maligned man with an inflated sense of self-worth.

 

[cumulative]

I haven't been sure what to make of these reports. To me, the "nice to have" elements are overpowering the "core" elements.

For example, being as we're in this corner of the Internet, I want to read about "designers at Pitti and their designs" or something like that. That's core to me. If the writer also wants to write about Italian food and wine and nightlife and what have you, I'm happy to read it. That's very nice to have for me, especially with the entertaining style of the writers.

But it's not core. If I read one line of how designers are just showing the same 'ol stuff and then end story. And then have five lines about how delicious a particular dish is... what the heck is that? On another forum (a skin care forum) there was a guy who went to skin care conventions and wrote about the new products and if he thought they were any good or not; he didn't write about what he was eating. I would have been interested to know--but would have felt weird if his posts became skin care light and dinner heavy.

I want to further say that I very much appreciate the Gonzo-type journalism you guys use, because it's appropriate for SF. Be detached and objective if you want: "Participants this year favored X..." (because you interviewed a bunch of participants so you have evidence). But New York Times can do that. Being that this is SF--a community--and you all some of its most prominent members, I value your thoughts and feelings. "People like tartan suits; I think they suck."

I.e., give me your thoughts and feelings on designers and clothes as the main dish, and your thoughts and feelings on everything else--Italian infrastructure, air travel, jet lag--as side dishes.

Lastly, I think there's a bunch to say where sometimes a writer feels there is none. Tell us who is boring so we know, instead of just saying a bunch of brands are boring. Is Barena just doing Slanega, Torceo, and some third design every year just in different colors? Are they one of the culprits?

Who is keeping the boring brands alive? Who nods their heads to make any design a "classic" / cash cow? Is SF sustaining Starks and GATs? Who keeps Valstarino alive? Probably not Americans.

Do buyers from different markets consistently buy differently? Does a vendor know a Japanese buyer is going to be interested in X, and an American buyer in Y?

Lastly, lastly, I appreciate you guys are even doing this. I have no expectation heavy hitters on a forum I like will go to Pitti. It's all bonus to me! But if you're going to provide this bonus, then I wish the "nice to have" elements don't overpower the "core" elements.

Rosenrot strikes a pretty good balance. She finds a lot of "I'm like Rick" copycat/derivative stuff, which of course is familiar but turns her off. I get what she's saying. Telling me about breakfast in between telling me about clothes, is much better than telling me about clothes in between telling me about breakfast.

 

[LA Guy]

Hi @cumulative - we will get to the more substantive stuff as the season wears on. The gonzo style reporting is to give the community a sense of what it is like to be there. And yes, there is fashion, and there are designers, but a lot of how it feels like to be there is Italy in a frenzy after traveling for 24 hours. tbh, the amount of stuff you see when you first get there is overwhelming. It's only later, in retrospect, and honestly, with the help of photos, that you piece together a more coherent story. I'm still putting my stories together.

One thing that we will no longer be doing is single designer stories. We've noticed that they do not get much interest from the community, because men are still primarily buy and wear. This, combined with the internet being still a fairly one-dimensional medium, and there is not a lot of discuss with the "description, a bunch of pictures" format. Instead, we'll have some more historical and analytical stories, most of them published in the monthly email newsletters that we send out, on subjects like where Pitti is likely to go from here on out, what are some of the prevailing trends, how workwear/heritage clothing is interpreted by different designers around the world, etc...

We will also have travel and food articles - this site is more than just about the clothes you wear.

 

[LA Guy]

Do buyers from different markets consistently buy differently? Does a vendor know a Japanese buyer is going to be interested in X, and an American buyer in Y?

I will tell you about socks. Max at Bresciani once told me that US retailers are the most likely to order what he called "crazy patterns", which I just saw as nice patterns. European buyers stick to classic colors. A lot of navy and other solids. Russsia? All black, only black, all the time.

 

[cumulative]

I'm glad there will be more substantive stuff later.

You yourself are saying that most forum members (active posters and lurkers alike) aren't interested in designer deep dives. I agree.

Most of us are wondering what "looks sick as ****". Some will try to figure that out without outside opinion. Others will try to find out what you and others with SF cred thinks fits the bill. And then find something they like from that list in their price range and call it a day. They want you to edit the vast universe of creators and creations, because (1) they think you've seen more stuff, and (2) they think you have better taste than they do.

This editing function is very important, because time is a scarcity for everyone.

Your opinions save everyone time. Instead of googling every Pitti attendee, you mention ts(s), and boom, people are searching for ts(s). You say esemplare sucks, and people are thinking they might cross that from the list they're trying to create. When Rosenrot lays down her write up of the Japanese yarn maker's stuff or whatever, boom a lot of searches on that will happen.

Yes, tell us about eating in Florence during Pitti, or pub crawling in Florence during Pitti, or walking miles in Pitti with jet lag. Sure. But it's kind of like dancing around the thing most people are after: What most people want to know is: what CLOTHING stuff did you see, what sucked and your reasoning, what rocked and your reasoning. I do appreciate your hard work, but I'm sure everyone's ears perked up when you started talking about brands. (You guys mostly don't even mention restaurant names; so I still have to rely on Rick Steves or something.)

 

[LA Guy]

Buy ts(s).

Eat at the Trattoria Armando.

 

[LA Guy]

Notable trend: bulletproof vests.

Best travel slippers: La Portegna.

Best use of ancient Appreciation: Isaia.

 

[cumulative]

Buy ts(s).

Eat at the Trattoria Armando.

Yep, I think that's what most people are looking for. They just want the justification, too.

I'm a member of a really old skin care forum. Everyone primarily came on to find what works for the skin. Once that stuff was found and agreed on, the forum kind of died. It's so good that the product category around which SF is centered isn't primarily function based. If we only cared about the absolutely warmest outerwear, once we found the answer there'd be nothing left to discuss.