Pitti Immagine - the summer round - takes place between June 14 and 17 in Florence. For those of you late to the party, it's the menswear fashion fair that used to be a litmus test for what is hot in menswear but now acts as something more than that, like a cultural fashion circus re-enactment of Walt Disney's 'It's a small world after all'.
Don't take that as a put down. Pitti is very important for menswear and it ought to be recognised as such. Not more than a fortnight ago I was trying to explain Instagram to a technophobe and quite possibly a misanthrope who was poo pooing everything new and technological and suggesting in his discourse that we should do away with our obsession for picking up new things. He was right, but then he was also wrong. After I explained to him the use of hash tags on Instagram he was nearly guffawing at the what he saw as the idiocy of a self-obsessed society perpetually engrossed in themselves and certain social media feeds.
"So if you were into say lizards you might follow say #lizards or #bluetonguelizards. For example, my daughter and I lie in bed some nights before bed time and search #puppydogs so that she can see all sorts of dogs around the world".
It hadn't won him over. We, which is to say the third in this conversation, tried to persuade him that his own interests might be satiated by such a medium.
"But that means nobody would go to the library and do any proper research or reading. Everybody just gets their information from these streams, do you see how dumb society would be becoming".
Both of us took his point. But by the same token we couldn't help but feel that he was very limited in commenting on society since he refused to come into the new century and use both a smart phone and access social media. He could postulate all he wanted on what Wikipedia, Instagram, Facebook and smartphones were doing to the overall intelligence of people on this planet, but so long as he refused to engage he was like a Martian trying to describe Earth to humans - ultimately, his analysis was somewhat limited.
A little in the reverse can be said of Pitti. I have not been yet. That makes me limited. I want to go. Because after my observation of my friend the other day I realised I had such a limited view of the fashion fair and it's participants if all I did was digest the images of those walking in or out of the Florentine menswear fair.
So, I am suggesting this to all of those who knock Pitti: unless you have physically turned up, your comments should be somewhat discounted. As for me, I will do my best to make it to the next one. In the meantime, I look forward to what delights we will get as of June 14.
See a list of exhibitors here.
Don't take that as a put down. Pitti is very important for menswear and it ought to be recognised as such. Not more than a fortnight ago I was trying to explain Instagram to a technophobe and quite possibly a misanthrope who was poo pooing everything new and technological and suggesting in his discourse that we should do away with our obsession for picking up new things. He was right, but then he was also wrong. After I explained to him the use of hash tags on Instagram he was nearly guffawing at the what he saw as the idiocy of a self-obsessed society perpetually engrossed in themselves and certain social media feeds.
"So if you were into say lizards you might follow say #lizards or #bluetonguelizards. For example, my daughter and I lie in bed some nights before bed time and search #puppydogs so that she can see all sorts of dogs around the world".
It hadn't won him over. We, which is to say the third in this conversation, tried to persuade him that his own interests might be satiated by such a medium.
"But that means nobody would go to the library and do any proper research or reading. Everybody just gets their information from these streams, do you see how dumb society would be becoming".
Both of us took his point. But by the same token we couldn't help but feel that he was very limited in commenting on society since he refused to come into the new century and use both a smart phone and access social media. He could postulate all he wanted on what Wikipedia, Instagram, Facebook and smartphones were doing to the overall intelligence of people on this planet, but so long as he refused to engage he was like a Martian trying to describe Earth to humans - ultimately, his analysis was somewhat limited.
A little in the reverse can be said of Pitti. I have not been yet. That makes me limited. I want to go. Because after my observation of my friend the other day I realised I had such a limited view of the fashion fair and it's participants if all I did was digest the images of those walking in or out of the Florentine menswear fair.
So, I am suggesting this to all of those who knock Pitti: unless you have physically turned up, your comments should be somewhat discounted. As for me, I will do my best to make it to the next one. In the meantime, I look forward to what delights we will get as of June 14.
See a list of exhibitors here.
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