Pitti Immagine is a state of mind, I don’t know if I read it somewhere. I most probably made it up because I believe in it.
Imagine having an automatic teller randomly dispensing gorgeous men impeccably tailored and formidably dressed for three consecutive days . Unabridged, like a dictionary, un-interrupted and thoughtfully edited.
No Milan, New York or London compares. Maybe Paris for Couture, but you have to be in the street and venue hopping. In Florence it all happens in the magic of the Fortezza da Basso. And here comes my being Tuscan and growing up with Florence in my pores, but maybe that is one intrinsic reasons why Pitti is Pitti and the best showdown of that sophisticated European sensibility.
La Fortezza, the ‘barn’ where the Medici used to keep their horses for pleasure and for war during the florentine renaissance, opens up for Pitti Uomo (not to confuse it with Palazzo Pitti, another historical Palazzo where another piece of fashion history was made when Italian fashion was born in 1952). It is a Pandora’s Box that opens up to centuries of history, battles, the Renaissance period, Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, the arts, the culture and everything that the dynasty of the Medici family left for the world. There, not in any other frescoed palazzo Strozzi, in the barn, is the background for the showcase of men fashion for the next season.
Here’s an example of what happens through those graveled alleys. It is not the usual trade show, Pitti Uomo is where you spot the trends for the season to come (just watch closely).