Florence and Milan join forces to promote men’s fashion

By

Dominique Muret

Published
Feb 21, 2014

Find the synergies and be a team: that’s the new slogan humming in the halls of Italian fashion institutions, which are working closely together to regain ground lost to other powerful fashion centers like Paris and London.

Florentine trade show Pitti Uomo, the premier menswear event, and the National Chamber for Italian Fashion (“CNMI”) are working on a “large and important” project that should lead to the creation, in January 2015, of “Men’s Fashion Week in Italy.”

The project’s goal is to reach agreement with Paris and London on establishing a calendar that will please everyone, without infringing on one another’s dates, as is now the case with London and Florence. Florentine organizer Pitti Immagine became exasperated by the attitude of the British Fashion Council, which scheduled its men’s fashion week around January 6, putting Pitti Uomo in serious difficulties. It therefore announced its firm intention to begin the next three winter editions of Pitti Uomo on January 8 every year for the period 2015-2017. And that in turn created discontent on the part of Milan.

Several meetings have already been held among the directors of Pitti Immagine, CNMI president Mario Boselli, and his French counterpart Didier Grumbach. “New meetings are planned. The purpose is to restructure the international calendar to be more coherent, and to move it by one week every 6 or 7 years, as used to be the case. At the moment we are looking to reach agreement with Milan and Paris, and then we will meet with London, probably in April,” explained Gaetano Marzotto, president of Pitti Immagine.

“We are currently working on a solution with dates that will please everyone and which will be divided among the three of us. London will then make its own decision,” confirmed Mario Boselli.

“Milan is strong, but not as strong as Paris and London. Yet, we have each played our cards separately these past few years. Today, we want to unite our strengths to create more opportunities for buyers who come to Italy looking for what’s new and for emerging labels. The idea is to create, starting next January, a week devoted uniquely to men’s fashion, that will take place for three and a half days in Florence and three and a half days in Milan, with organized events coordinated between one city and the other. We are already working on a first joint initiative for June,” Gaetano Marzotto continued.

A further goal is to convince the 20,000 buyers who visit Florence to stop in Milan before heading to Paris. “Out of these 20,000 buyers, only 7000-8000 visit Milan. On the other hand, some buyers don’t make the trip to Florence. It’s up to us to encourage them,” concluded the president of Pitti Immagine.