Today the board of directors of Pitti Immagine announced to postpone its physical fairs until January 2021. This includes Pitti Uomo as well as Pitti Bimbo, Pitti Filati, Pitti Fragranze and Super.
Before, the organizers had already postponed the events scheduled for this summer to early fall, namely its Florence menswear event Pitti Uomo was moved from its June date to be held 02-04 September. But it seems the feedback from the industry was not strong enough to maintain the realization of the trade shows and "[...] the board acknowledged the insufficient number of confirmations of attendance as well as the ongoing state of difficulty of the companies," as it says in today's official statement.
“This was a very painful yet inevitable decision dictated by the conditions of operational and economic difficulty in which the majority of the manufacturing companies and retailers–shops, department stores–find themselves and by the uncertainties that continue to persist regarding the modalities of traveling from one country to another, including quarantine restrictions, which have obviously heavily conditioned the plans of international buyers. I should add that the prolonged absence of any certainties regarding non-repayable government and European economic support for taking part in the fairs, greatly affected the exhibitors’ decisions", states Claudio Marenzi, president, Pitti Immagine.
Instead, Pitti Immagine will now further focus on the launch of the Pitti Connect platform (read our interview here), the digital version of the above fairs which will be open to all exhibitors.
The new digital platform will be launched by the end of June/first week of July, in order to help companies comply with the traditional timings of the sales campaign, and it will be extended to the whole of September. It is meant to have the same editorial and curatorial layout of Pitti and will feature "collections and products presented according to themed itineraries, events and special projects with preeminent guests, openings towards new international fashion phenomena, the promotion of up-and-coming talents, the discussion of the hottest and most highly debated topics, collaborations and partnerships with the media and other fashion subjects”.
“In parallel we will immediately start to program the next winter edition in order to consolidate and support the much hoped for recovery of production and commercial trade in the fall and at the beginning of 2021”, concludes Raffaello Napoleone, CEO, Pitti Immagine.
READ ALSO:
