Pitti fairs moved to February 2021

The winter editions of the Pitti Immagine fairs in Florence, comprising Uomo, Filati and Bimbo, have all been moved to 21-23 February, 2021, following a meeting of the board of directors yesterday.

President of Pitti Immagine, Claudio Marenzi, chaired the video conference, concluding that considering the current health emergency in Italy – and around the world – as the coronavirus pandemic continues to disrupt everyone’s lives, it’s a necessity to move the shows back. Pitti Uomo was originally scheduled for 12-14 January, 2021.

Marenzi said: “Following the latest Prime Ministerial order extending the suspension of international trade fairs until 3 December, we began to reflect on the real possibility of organising the fairs starting from 12 January, the date set for Pitti Uomo, concluding that the margin of time available was truly meagre and the situation still too uncertain.

“We had also received a lot of requests from exhibitors and buyers who, reiterating the need to return to a quality physical event, asked for more time to present the collections and organise their presence in Florence. In the face of these requests directed towards ourselves as well as the market, we decided to postpone the start of the cycle by five weeks and come up with an innovative formula for the ensemble of fairs in the hope and belief that, in the meantime, the conditions and authorisations for holding fair events would have been restored.”

CEO of Pitti Immagine, Raffaello Napoleone, commented: “We are aware that by around the third week of February the sales campaigns of the collections will already be at an advanced stage, but we know that there will still be good portfolio margins for buyers, especially all those who feel the need to have a precise, physical contact with stylish products of high manufacturing value.

“And that’s not all, as we will be opening the Connect digital platform to exhibitors well in advance. We have been working very hard on this platform over the last few months in order to boost the collection of orders and expand the editorial coverage. We are organising a big promotion of our online sales system that will reach top buyers all over the world.

“Finally, we have already prepared all the necessary safety measures, from entrance checks to the planning of visits to the stands, to a design of the layout furnishings that takes into account social distancing and constant sanitisation. An undertaking to which we have totally committed ourselves.”

Agostino Poletto, General Manager of Pitti Immagine, added: “It will be a truly special Pitti because, the idea of working in an emergency situation, concentrating Uomo, Filati and Bimbo within a single time frame while maintaining their own particular characteristics, working in two choice venues like the Fortezza da Basso and the Stazione Leopolda and, at the same time, having the opportunity and need to transfer all of this to a digital sphere in real time, led us to reason in a very different way than usual. Over the next few days we will be organising the positioning of the three fairs in the exhibition spaces.”