For over half a century, the enchanting structure of the Duomo of Florence and the ancient Fortezza da Basso have been the setting for the biennial gathering of the men's fashion industry. Every year, in January and June, approximately 30,000 buyers, including designers, journalists and suppliers, flock to the Tuscan capital to participate in the days and events of Pitti Uomo.
This celebrated men's fashion exhibition conjures up images ranging from impeccable sartorial elegance to avant-garde streetwear. This year, the 106th edition characterized by the yellow "Lemon" will present its spring/summer 2025 collections in five concept macro-categories: Fantastic Classic, Futuro Maschile , Dynamic Attitude, Superstyling, I Go Out. In addition, dedicated sections will highlight sustainable and vintage clothing.
The roots of Pitti Uomo are distant and date back to the passionate vision of the founder, Giovanni Battista Giorgini, in the 50s. With foresight and overview, he launched the first "High Italian Fashion Show" in Florence. This event, an explosion of anticipations and dreams of Italian fashion, in addition to laying the foundations for the most important menswear fair, consolidated "Made in Italy" as an internationally recognized brand of quality and style.
Already in the interwar period, the "Buying Offices" in Florence distributed a wide range of clothing and home accessories, coming from the extraordinary Tuscan and Italian craftsmanship production, both in America and in Northern Europe, creating a bridge between cultures and styles.
In 1950, Giorgini, with a brilliant and courageous intuition, understood that it was time to create a system to export the credibility of the Italian artisan product through the international image of Florence. On February 12, 1951, he organized the first international event of Italian fashion in his residence at Villa Torrigiani, presenting a set of Italian collections for spring-summer 1951 to the "buyers" of the New York department stores, combining art and industry in a single vibrant show, as in a ballet of fabrics and colors.
The success of the event - a triumph of style and innovation - moved the event to the Sala Bianca in Palazzo Pitti, which illuminated Italian fashion to the whole world from July 22, 1952 until 1982, creating a beacon of elegance and refinement, a beacon that still shines today in the heart of fashion. In September 1972 the first edition of Pitti Uomo was launched, an exhibition of men's clothing and accessories, created to promote the best Italian men's industry on large foreign markets, combining tradition and modernity in a perfect combination, a marriage of style and functionality.
In the 90s, Italian fashion consolidated a new territorial subdivision of products: designers and the women's industry in Milan, Haute Couture in Rome, the men's industry and other textile-clothing sectors in Florence, thus becoming the new capital of the "fashion culture". In the mid-1990s, Pitti Uomo had already hosted names such as Giorgio Armani, Gianfranco Ferré and Dolce & Gabbana, and saw the Italian debut of international designers of the calibre of Dries Van Noten and the first men's collection by Viktor & Rolf.
In 2005, Raf Simons celebrated a decade of creativity at the Boboli Gardens, combining art, music, photography and performance in an aesthetic project that reflected the mission of the Pitti Discovery Foundation, founded in 2003 to manage the cultural aspects related to fashion.
Among the memorable events, the "Liquid Space" fashion show by Diesel in 2007 stands out, with a catwalk animated by models and holograms; the appearance of Naomi Campbell, divine and radiant, who in the summer of 2006 parades on the Ponte Vecchio for Roberto Cavalli; the event in total white dedicated to the Maison Martin Margiela at the Puccini Theater in 2006; the elegant collection of Haider Ackermann in 2010; presented in the magnificent Palazzo Corsini.
Finally, among the numerous exhibitions and special projects, the one in 2015 at the Marino Marini Museum stands out, dedicated to the great master Nino Cerruti, a tribute to the mastery and passion that have made Italian fashion great.
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