Pitti kicks off tomorrow: the fair proves a chance to share strategies and visions

The article is an anticipation of the Speciale Moda Uomo (Men's Fashion Special) on newsstands tomorrow, 17 June, as a supplement to the newspaper: 28 pages dedicated to in-depth analysis, to companies and their strategies to face the critical moment and to products, with showcases in collaboration with Htsi.

Resist. The fashion industry borrows the words of magistrate Francesco Saverio Borrelli, the former head of the Mani Pulite pool, who died in 2019, who, closing his inaugural report of the judicial year on the eve of his retirement in January 2002, called for 'resist, resist, resist against the crumbling and wreckage of civic conscience and the sense of law'.

Italian fashion is now struggling against market difficulties that are raining down like thunderbolts, increasing rather than decreasing (see present and future tariffs), but it is not discouraged. After passing through the Covid - is the widespread thought - nothing can be scary any more. This is why at the Pitti Uomo opening today at the Fortezza da Basso in Florence, there are 730 collections of clothing, shoes, leather goods and accessories for spring-summer 2026, arriving from all over the world (43% are foreign).

The fair remains the most important international appointment for men's fashion, not just a fair to attract buyers but a container of events, presentations, special projects and a few fashion shows: this 108th edition will feature those of Homme Plissé Issey Miyake (see page 4) by the young Korean designers Paf-Post Archive Faction and the Italian Niccolò Pasqualetti. This time inside the Fortezza there will also be a place for the world of bicycles, with a selection of cycling brands that will animate the Becycle section (conceived last year as an autonomous exhibition by Pitti Immagine, on the occasion of the departure of the Tour de France from Florence, and now merged within Pitti Uomo). It is precisely the Pitti Bikes theme that will be the thread linking the Pitti summer fairs.

Will all this be enough to revitalise the sector? No one can say, but the certainty is that companies - large and small - will have to equip themselves to respond to changes on the regulatory, production, distribution and outlet market fronts. Some answers are already emerging. One is the aggregation of producer-types into poles, hubs, groups acquiring greater strength and expertise to serve the big brands. These are operations that are often promoted by companies or investment funds, which go in the direction of making synergies, reducing costs, presiding over sustainability and traceability. The most famous cases are those of Holding Moda, Gruppo Florence, Pattern, whose ceo, Luca Sburlati, has just taken office as the new president of Confindustria Moda. But also in the shoes and metal accessories sector, many specialised poles are forming. A nearby dynamic is the integration into the parent company of key suppliers in the supply chain, which are acquired and 'incorporated' to better meet production and transparency requirements. A more complex answer is international positioning: markets are changing as fast as never before, conditioned also by geopolitical events and tariffs.