Pitti Connect digital platform to launch 16 July

The launch date of Pitti Immagine’s digital platform Pitti Connect, covering all of the organiser’s 2020 summer fairs - including Pitti Uomo 98, Pitti Bimbo 91 and Pitti Filati 87 - has now been revealed as 16 July, and is set to run through to 9 October, 2020.

The digital platform will host a schedule of three months of events, special projects, conversations and fashion feeds.

With regard to menswear trade fair Pitti Uomo, brands which have confirmed their participation in Pitti Connect to date include Baracuta, Barbour, Ben Sherman, Clarks Originals, Invicta, Karl Lagerfeld, Paraboot, Paul & Shark, Raeburn, Sandqvist and Valstar. The theme for this year’s show is perhaps aptly named as "Out of the Blue".

Agostino Poletto, general manager of Pitti Immagine, says: “We’ve arrived! After months of hard work, we are presenting ourselves to the international fashion audience with a new online face. Until 9 October our special fairs are online, with the summer collections of brands and exhibiting companies – featuring key names on the international fashion scene - and with a program of digital projects to discover new points of view, to analyse and be inspired.

“We were looking for immediate solutions, we found long term opportunities. Pitti Connect has led to a great acceleration in the technological and virtual fields for our fairs, and concretely represents the element of continuity that will carry us towards January 2021 when the physical and digital fairs will become completely integrated.”

In the light of the extended opening period of the commercial platform, and considering the forecasted sales campaign that will continue well after the normal dates, Pitti Immagine has decided to keep open the option for companies to register with no fixed term.

Lapo Cianchi, Pitti Immagine’s communication and special events director, adds: “Pitti Connect will also have an editorial format that is rich in content and special events which will render the atmosphere of the real fairs in the digital sphere, involving leading figures in fashion, artists and key people on the current cultural scene.

“We also have a multi-faceted web magazine that we have rechristened THE BILLBOARD, which we are able to realise thanks to our close collaboration with the production agency of Highsnobiety, one of the international reference points in fashion publishing.”