Pitti Uomo 103 continues to embody the classic menswear lexicon. This time, with a twist
A season mixing fashion’s quintessential codes with the realm of innovation, alongside a yearning to travel, discover and experiment in an increasingly international dimension. Pitti Uomo is back in full force: the Fall/Winter 2023 edition—called PITTIWAY—will take place at the Fortezza da Basso, Florence, from 10 to 13 January 2023. The season’s guest show features Martine Rose, the British-Jamaican designer who will present an Autumn-Winter 2023-24 preview in Florence—with a collection of her eponymous label—through a special event on Wednesday 12 January. While Jan-Jan Van Essche will be the Designer Project this season. The Belgian designer will showcase his concept of fluid fashion during the event. Four days during which the revered event for men’s fashion and lifestyle will host the protagonists of the global menswear scene, leading brands and the most innovative projects, with a programme of previews, events and appointments not to be missed. In this edition, the focus is on the exhibition route in the Fortezza, which will show a complete preview of the new men’s collections. But there’s more to the story: Pitti Uomo pushes its proposal forward and expands its itinerary, with special projects that intercept the new desires of today’s lifestyle. The return of I GO OUT, the section dedicated to the world of outdoor clothing research, goes in this direction. The sections Fantastic Classic, Futuro Maschile, Dynamic Attitude, Superstyling, and the S|Style areas focused on eco-responsible fashion are confirmed and enriched with protagonists, to which are added two absolute novelties: the special areas “the SIGN” and “PITTIPETS”, which broaden the confines of the event, further-enriching it with content. This Thus, Pitti Uomo confirms itself as an exhibition capable of creating ever new connections between different but not distant worlds: a crossover of fashion and lifestyle that will offer the reference community an ever broader and more current range of creative proposals. PITTIWAY, the theme of the forthcoming Pitti Immagine winter fairs, is the result of the joint collaboration of a-star creatives and artists, coordinated by creative director Angelo Figus. The programme interprets today’s moods and aspirations, transforming them into the very core leitmotif of the advertising campaigns and displays present at the Fortezza da Basso. A dynamic result with a pop and street-led edge, which is condensed in the video signed by director Leonardo Corallini and, in turns, interpreted by dancer Giampaolo Gobbi in the campaign designed for Pitti Uomo 103. Starting afresh is everyone’s wish in times of tumult, but deciding the direction, getting oriented, making choices is no easy feat. Indications, stimuli and needs do not always converge, and the proceeding cannot be linear. One moves, one gets stuck, one restarts. Falling, swerving, decelerating, accelerating, overtaking and stopping. These are just a few of the conflicting warnings that seem to guide the behaviour of all of us at a time of great uncertainty, which teaches us a profound desire to move on. Managing one’s choices, both important and minor, ends up tracing paths, according to a personal trajectory that must take into account not only emotions and experience, but also new tools to make fashion a far more conscious system could be the way: “PITTIWAY underlines the many choices we are led to evaluate in order to get out of the complicated global gridlock,” says Agostino Poletto, Pitti Immagine’s general director, who then adds that, “In this moment that is not easy, but also creative, innovative, different, the Pitti Immagine fairs will be a compass to define new directions, to hypothesise paths, to consider choices and then to start again. In the Fortezza there will be lines, arrows, curves, inversions on which to surf to go fast. A sometimes contradictory signpost that demonstrates an inexhaustible energy: the same energy that leads towards new directions, all still possible, of the future.”
