The PITTIs, the Vicenza Fair, and the Vintage Market

For the past few weeks Florence has been a busy busy city, its just the time of the year. First it was all the Pitti Shows from Uomo to W to Bimbo to Filati. Then came the vintage market at Stazion Leopolda where I stared my eyes straight at the 80-year-old Chanels purses. Also two hours away was the jewelry fair at Vicenza, which was absolutely humongous... We will go through them one by one.
Pitti Uomo, basically the biggest show in the industry for buyers to gather around and decide what they want in their shops a few months later. From top luxury brands such as Stefano Ricci (where one of his BEAUTIFUL BEAUTIFUL sons was at looking after the showing), Kiton, Isaia, Savile Row's Richard Anderson (whom I happened to meet in person and buy his book from, which he signed,
 also his business partner Brian Lishak was extremely kind ), Zilli, to the usual fashion brands we see, for example Marlboro Classics, Gant... You get the picture. Everything was overwhelming and after a couple of hours it was inevitable but to feel a bit exhausted. The part I found more interesting than the showing was looking at how the clients, buyers etc. dressed. There were grey plaids suits with red leather shoes, knit trousers, lots of scarves and lots of blackberries. I had to go back there a couple of times for this trend board, which isn't that amazing since there really isn't that much new stuff on the roll. A few points, purple still going strong, plaids, some knit ties appearing here and there, and the greys, the navy... blah blah blah.
Pitti W was boring. Not much to say. There weren't many brands there at all and everything was in a grey-ground-color mood which is again, BORING.
Now here comes the cute part: Pitti Bimbo. Those little jackets with patching done around the elbows and the little dresses paired with tiny little slippers! There were heaps of fur to be seen, sequins, plaids, plus floral of course. About the sequins, thats where I'm concerned about. This is a photo a friend of mine took at the fair.

Little babies do need to look pretty and shiny and glittery, but most important of all, they need to be comfortable and safe!! No matter how some brands were trying to explain to me that their sequins were sewn on with great care, well, I had to say to their faces that I simply don't think that right. The fur... some designers were using common rabbit fur!! Come on, if you want to use fur, use at least rex rabbits, the common rabbit fur is the easiest to float around, do you want those kids to cough up fur balls like cats do?! What were they thinking?
Pitti Filati is said to be a dying fair, with a time-to-market of 18 months its a bit too slow for the business nowadays. The whole fair was about natural, with themes like "No Washing Machine", "No Emails", "No Restaurants"... All the dyes presented were natural dyes taken mostly from our plates, greens, wheats, some reds, and ground. Loro Piana had an impressive display, but only their yarn division people were there, when the textile division is where I was more interested in.
The Vintage Fair like I said had loads of goodies, but for very very high prices of course. So when I got this Salvatore Ferragamo purse I considered myself getting a bargain for a fairly reasonable price.

Isn't it a beauty? Its dark blue snake skin, and when under light it has a gold-ish reflexion which adds a bit of mystery to it. When I go to the Ferragamo Museum tomorrow I will sure carry it with me! I also got this black double layered jackets, no brand, no nothing, however it reminded me of some of the Jil Sander stuff from last year, the whole Pol Chambost look. It has a longish back too so it has a Napoleon feel that is right on for this season.
By the way, I took this while walking back from Stazione Leopolda. I've been wanting to take photos of these lightpoles for a long time, no reasons in particular. I just like them :P

At the Vicenza Jewelry Fair I had the chance of meeting Roberto Coin and Marco Bicego in person, which totally made my day, especially Mr. Coin, he was hilarious during the little chat we had. Like I mentioned in the beginning, the fair was humonguous, no way you could look through everything in one day. There is no point either, just the saying "nothing new under the sun". The jewels that were on display would be on the Italian market within the next 4 to 5 months, and soon on the global market, but just soon they will go out of style again. There are exceptions though, such as RCM or Golden Shapes by Gaspari, now they are LUXURY. Their pieces are bought to be treasured and kept. The fact that they only do word-of-mouth to promote the brand, and their limited cliente, there is no need to follow any trends. (A special mention of Mr. Coin here, who made it clear that he would see a trend, do the exact opposite and make other follow. He made it very very clear.)
Next stop, the Ferragamo Museum, can't wait.....!!