After a little smalltalk we concentrated on the happening! Luca is showing us around the atelier. Proudly he presents the new tool, which he worked on for month. A new online tool on the website of Mario Bemer, where the customer has the possibility to design his own pair of shoes. That was very impressive but challenging at the same time. Even though at this time all the shapes and colors haven’t been completely available in this tool, we’ve been a bit overwhelmed with the choice of our pairs of shoes. You need time – you need patience and you should know, what exactly you want. Except when you want to try how many possibilities this tool offers you (I’m sure there are more than you can imagine!).

Damn it! – the Pitti Uomo 93 was truly a successful event for us! Can’t describe it better than this…lucky me! Made new contacts, cultivated old and new friendships and had pizza & espresso every single day…
In return it feels like we walked a hundred kilometers through Florence’s streets! Szymon, Rochiester and I arrived in Florence late Friday before the world’s most important exhibition for classy menswear started. After a quick check-in to our acutally not that good Airbnb appartment we wanted to go out! We were starving, so we „jepped“ through the beautiful streets of Florence to find something to eat.

(„to jep“ – the way
to stroll through
the streets like
Jep Gambardella
in „La Grande Belleza“)

The main reason for our journey was to visit the trade exhibition „Pitti Uomo“ at the Fortezza da Basso. Among others to show the world that our collaboration partner FALKE does not only produce knee socks,
but also overgarments!
For the Pitti Uomo FALKE provided coats, trousers & knitwear for us. And the effect was great! On the one hand we back FALKE fashion and felt absolutely comfortable. On the other hand a photographer of the New York Times Fashion liked our FALKE outfits so much that she shared two pictures on the NYTF Instagram account with 2,3 mio followers. GQ USA chose a picture of us chatting with the bloggers Johannes, Justus and Sandro as the title picture for the Pitti article.

THAT’S F**KING DOPE ISN’T IT?!

But this year we noticed, that the vibes of the Pitti Uomo kind of change! There have been a lot of new faces, which does not mean anything bad. But for us it seemed like that a lot of these new faces neither have seen the exhibition from the inside nor are interested in exploring it. Colors over colors and summer tones in the winter season, just to get caught by the photographers. We don’t think that it always looked bad – but in our opinion it means something different to have class – for having class you need attitude and authenticity!
The top of this circus was a dad and his two sons – very well dressed and his sons were very cute. But the Pitti Uomo has nothing to do with little boys which are brought in front of the cameras by their dad to get attention. That compares to beauty pageants in the US,
where parents try to make profit in any shape and form out of their daughters.
That was not the only we reason we spent more time inside of the exhibition!

*the following pictures do not purpose to be an example for the above mentioned!

We made a lot of appointments with our collaboration partners to finally meet in person for the first time or again. That fixes the relationships and builts smooth working conditions. And during the time we had no appointments we were heading for new possibilities to collaborate and especially for new inspiration – also very successful!

So we can say that we had a lot of fun and success inside and outside of the exhibition halls
and we can share this with you in our articles soon.

On this way we want to tell special thanks to our photographer Rochiester
who caught us with his camera from all sides.
Without Rochiester we wouldn’t have this much material
which we share with you on Instagram and in this article.

With this in mind – Cheers!

Verdammt nochmal war die Pitti Uomo 93 ein Erfolg für uns! Anders kann ich es zum Glück nicht ausdrücken.
Neue Kontakte hergestellt, alte und neue Freundschaften gepflegt und einfach jeden Tag Pizza gegessen und Espresso getrunken…
Dafür aber auch wirklich viel auf den Beinen gewesen – schon am Freitag Abend vor Beginn der größten und wichtigsten Messe für klassische Herrenmode sind Szymon, Rochiester & Ich in Florenz angekommen. Kurzes Check-In in unserer echt gar nicht mal so geilen Airbnb Wohnung und dann raus. Der Hunger plagte – also sind wir ein wenig durch die Straßen von Florenz „gejeppt“*, um was essbares zu finden.

Der Hauptgrund unserer Reise war aber der Besuch der Handelsmesse „Pitti Uomo“ auf dem Fortezza da Basso. Unter anderem, um der Welt zu zeigen, dass unser Partner FALKE nicht nur Kniestrümpfe produziert,
sondern auch Oberbekleidung! Für die Pitti Uomo wurden uns Kleider in Form von Mänteln, Hosen & Pullovern zur Verfügung gestellt. Und es hat sich absolut gelohnt! Zum einen, weil wir voll und ganz hinter den Produkten stehen und uns äußerlich und innerlich unglaublich wohl gefühlt haben. Zum anderen, weil eine Fotografin der New York Times Fashion unsere FALKE-Outfits so interessant fand, dass diese zwei Bilder auf deren Instagram-Account, dem 2,3 Mio Leuten folgen, gepostet hat! Auch die GQ USA fand ein Bild, das uns in Unterhaltung mit den Bloggern Johannes, Justus und Sandro, titelwürdig für den Pitti-Artikel.

DAS FETZT DOCH ODER WAS?!

Dieses Jahr ist uns allerdings aufgefallen, dass sich das Flair der Pitti ein wenig verändert! Es gab viele neue Gesichter, was ja eigentlich nicht schlecht ist. Doch bei vielen wirkte es dann doch so, als würden sie die Messe noch nie von innen gesehen haben. Einer bunter als der andere, Sommerfarben im Winter, bloß um den Fotografen aufzufallen. Bedeutet nicht, dass es schlecht aussah – doch Stil ist unserer Meinung nach was anderes – dazu gehört Attitüde und Authentizität!
Den Vogel abgeschossen hat ein Vater mit seinen zwei Jungen – mega gut angezogen und auch niedliche Jungs. Jedoch hat die Pitti Uomo für uns nichts mit kleinen Kids zu tun, die von ihrem Vater vor die Fotografen gestellt werden. Das gleicht schon eher den amerikanischen Schönheitswettbewerben für Mädchen, wo die Eltern versuchen sich mit ihren Töchtern zu profilieren!
Nicht nur das gab uns den Anlass, vermehrt Zeit in den Messehallen zu verbringen.

*die folgenden Bilder sollen kein Beispiel für das oben Geschriebene sein!

Mit vielen unserer aktuellen Partner hatten wir uns auf der Pitti verabredet, um sich endlich mal persönlich kennenzulernen oder bereits wiederzusehen. Das bindet und macht das arbeiten deutlich angenehmer! Bei den Ständen, bei denen wir keine Termine hatten, haben wir uns eventuelle Partner und vor allem neue Inspiration gesucht – also ebenfalls ein voller Erfolg!

So können wir euch also mitteilen, dass wir sowohl innerhalb als auch außerhalb der Hallen Erfolge verzeichnen können und dies in bald folgenden Artikeln an euch tragen werden.

Auf diesem Wege möchten wir auch nochmal herzlichsten Dank an unseren Fotografen Rochiester ausrichten,
der uns aus allen möglichen Ecken fotografiert hat. Ohne ihn hätten wir nicht ansatzweise so viel Material, welches wir euch auf Instagram und in diesem Beitrag zeigen.

In diesem Sinne – Cheers!

Kisses left, kisses right – the greeting with Fabrizio Di Paolo was very italian! When I came to the Pitti Uomo (89) with our good friend Ralph Widmer for the first time, I was very lucky being photographed by Fabrizio – at that time it was Fabrizios second time photographing at the Pitti Uomo. In summer 2016 Szymon and I had the chance to meet & talk to him face to face. Since then we always greet each other and have a little chat when Fabrizio has got a few seconds – he likes to chat with the people around the Pitti, even if there is no time for it. With every Pitti Uomo Fabrizio gets more important for the Pitti – this time he was even invited by the organizers!

If he takes pictures of you at the Pitti Uomo, you fulfill some criteria. He’s not a big fan of men who dress with too many different colors and too many different fabrics. He likes classy men with a good view for details. Himself would never go to the Pitti Uomo for being photographed – „I always want to be the photographer!“.

No question for us that he is „THE photographer“ –
when we think of Pitti we are always very excited to meet Fabrizio!
Maybe we’ll meet him in Abruzzo or he will visit us in Bremen – then we can enjoy a glass of rum and have more good conversations. But until then we’re always more excited to go to the Pitti, knowing that we’ll meet Fabrizio!

Fabrizio Di Paolo Photography
Fabrizio Di Paolo Instagram

Salute!