Show Report: The word from Pitti Uomo (Part 2)
Friday saw the curtain close on the 104th edition of Pitti Uomo in Florence. It may not have been what we were used to pre-pandemic, but it was good to be back with plenty worth seeing and talking about.
In the second part of his show coverage, TheIndustry.fashion Contributing Editor, Tom Bottomley, talks to four more brands to find out what’s new and what to expect going forward.
Ffion Thomas, Johnstons of Elgin
Ffion Thomas, UK Sales Director, Johnstons of Elgin
We’re still a family-owned business and we’ve been producing woven goods for 225 years, and knitwear for the last 60 years. We employ over 1,200 people in Scotland, of which about 900 are in Elgin and another 300 in Hawick – where our knitwear is made. Last month we got awarded B Corp Certification, recognition of the work we’ve been doing regarding sustainability, but it also means when your business practices are there to benefit your community and not just your profit. That was important for the family.
About 70% of what we produce is for private label, for very well known British and international brands, as well as French couture houses, but the priority and real growth plan is for the Johnstons of Elgin own label. We’re in stores like Harrods and Selfridges in the UK, Neiman Marcus in the US and Isetan in Japan. On the e-commerce side we also sell our own brand through Mr Porter, Net-A-Porter, Matchesfashion and Browns.
I’d say 90% of what we do now is cashmere and fine Merino wool, though we do still do heritage tweeds, which is what we have our Royal Warrant for, as we produce estate tweeds – including for Balmoral and King Charles.
We have knitwear collections across men’s and women’s and we have a lot of unisex accessories. A real growth category for us is homeware, especially throws and cushions as we work a lot with interior designers.
Spring/summer is always a bit more difficult for a brand known for cashmere, but we have lightweight Merino knitwear and also a new superfine cashmere, and for SS24 we have large unisex lightweight Merino wool scarves in plain colours and ombre checks. They will retail for about £135.
We’re actually the last vertical mill (in Scotland), as we take the product in Elgin from the raw fibre in the bales to the finished product – we do the whole process. Customers are becoming wise to carbon footprint and where and how their products are made, and have become more educated as to why something costs what it does.
Stores are doing a lot of that work as well by educating their own customers as to why something is so special. In the last five years we’ve seen the move away from people equating logos with luxury, as now a lot of the luxury consumers are really looking at quality and craftsmanship, and what is now being frequently referred to as ‘quiet luxury’.
That customer was never really wearing logos anyway to be honest, but the wider audience is now getting wise to it too. If you were at Pitti five years ago, or even just before the pandemic, you’d have just seen logo mania everywhere, but now everything is really toned down. People are actually buying into the true product. They want to invest in the real thing, and that’s where we are perfectly positioned.
Rikki Kher, Kardo
Rikki Kher, Founder, Kardo
I’m based in New Delhi, though I’m originally from London. I set up Kardo in 2013, so I’m celebrating 10 years in business this year. We have a full collection, though it is predominantly shirts. We work with artisanal Indian textiles, as we have done from day one, and handloom textiles. I’d never seen anyone making menswear out of such Indian textiles previously – it was predominantly geared towards women with textiles that were woven for saris.
I wanted to create a brand with a different philosophy, slow fashion as opposed to the industrial way of making clothes. I found a workshop, bought a sewing machine and hired a tailor and a pattern cutter and got to work.
My parents are Indian, and my sister moved to India from London in 1991. I kept travelling to visit her in New Delhi, and I always wanted to find a way to be there as well as I just fell in love with the country. In 2004, I got job offer to move to India to run textile and garment sourcing for Spanish department store group El Corte Inglés. So, that’s when I moved to India with my family. I left El Corte Inglés in 2008 and set up my own sourcing company.
Then in 2012/2013 I started dabbling in making my own clothes. I wanted to change the way people saw India in terms of garment production. I didn’t want it to be cheap labour. I wanted to get across that we can make fine products, at a standard of say Japan, Italy or France.
I always wanted to take the wholesale route, because that’s what I understood. I didn’t realise understand digital. I launched my first collection in 2014 after six months of perfecting production, stitching techniques and samples. I showed the first collection at Capsule in New York and I met someone who said he liked what I was doing and could he be my agent. It went from there. The first collection was about 30 pieces, now it’s more like 150. We use textiles such as double Ikat, which is difficult because it’s warp and weft and it has to be matched. It’s all traditional Indian textile craft and we work with artisanal communities all around India who specialise in certain things.
We showed at Pitti last summer, but didn’t do the winter show, so this is our second time. We also show at Welcome Edition in Paris. We have some great UK accounts through Martin Gill at MOM Agency, including Mr Porter, Stuarts London, Son of a Stag, Meet Bernard, Murray, Array, Burrows & Hare, Seven Wolves, Frontiers Man, Old Town General Store, The Modern Draper and The Shopkeeper Store, and we’ve got others coming to see us on our stand at Pitti.
People understand craft a bit more now and want a story, as opposed to a bog standard shirt made in a factory along with 10,000 others that are exactly the same. Everybody wants to be a bit more individual and have a bit of soul in their clothing.
Going forward, I’d like to open a Kardo shop in London. That’s my next big project. In terms of timing, if something right became available I might jump quickly. Soho would be ideal, but we shall see.
Quino Gomez, Maria Gomez and Rafa Gomez, Unfeigned
Maria Gomez, Communications Director, Unfeigned
Unfeigned is a contemporary menswear brand based on quality, clean design and sustainability – with 80% of our collection produced in Portugal, and 20% in Spain. We are a family business, originally from Malaga in Spain but we moved to Madrid to set up the company in 2019 – with a first ready-to-wear collection for SS20, which we showed at Pitti in June 2019. As it turned out, it wasn’t good timing because of Covid.
Wholesale was the main route we wanted to take, and we managed to get Palladio as our agents in London. UK accounts include Fenwick, Treen, Collen and Clare, Curated Man, Burrows & Hare, The Local Merchants, Frontiers Man, Working Title and, from next season, Working Class Heroes. The UK is actually our biggest market because we started there early, though we do also have distribution in Japan and the US.
It was only during Covid that we didn’t show at Pitti, so this is third time back post-pandemic. This is a good show for connections, networking and catching up with people, but where we are really doing the business is at Welcome Edition in Paris. The winter Pitti show was busier than this for us, we’ve found it pretty quiet on the whole so far.
We started out with a goal to make the perfect basic T-shirt, and then we began making really good jersey and heavyweight cotton pieces. Our first piece was almost 300g organic cotton. We expanded all the jersey, and that’s now our staple line. But where the brand is moving forward is on the technical side, with jackets and blazers in technical fabrics. Then there’s our shirting line, including seersucker stripe fabrics - made in Spain but in that Japanese-style baggy cut, with long-sleeve and short-sleeve options. We’re pretty much known for that oversized look. We’re also well known for matching sets, such as shirts and shorts. There’s also sporty velour matching sets, including with a button-through oversized polo top and shorts.
We recently opened our own flagship store in Madrid, but we also now have everything in one place, including our showroom, warehouse and office, and it’s very centric.
Mattis Oppermann, Carl Friedrik
Mattis Oppermann, Co-Founder, Carl Friedrik
I established the business in London 10 years ago this year with my brother, Niklas. Our first product was a leather laptop case, as well as some small leather card holders and wallets. The aim was to use natural vegetable tan leather that ages well over time. Three years later we started developing some bags, including our ‘Palissy’ briefcase – with a laptop sleeve. That’s what we had real success with. What makes it unique is its very traditional in terms of craft and materials, but with a modern functionality and aesthetics. We then added the ‘Palissy Weekend’ bag.
At the end of 2019, we launched our luggage collection, which was bad timing with Covid hitting in early 2020. However, since the pandemic we’ve definitely seen strong growth in our luggage sales, as people are travelling again. I’d say 60% of our sales now just come from our suitcases.
We started with our first carry-on model, which fitted with our brand and our audience. It has an aluminium frame, polycarbonate case with leather trims - which ties in with our other bags – and silent run super smooth wheels. We offer a lifetime warranty on our cases, and we have repair centres in the UK, Germany and the US.
From the carry-on style, we added a check-in case, and then a larger check-in model which is now our best-seller in terms of the check-in models and stocked in Harrods. It retails for £565. We also have the ‘Carry-on Pro’, which has an added pocket on the front for a laptop, boarding pass, passport and so on. That is our best-seller in terms of our carry-on styles. Our briefcases also easily attach to our luggage with a removable strap. So, it looks good but is also very practical.
Our business is about 90% direct-to-consumer, but we also supply MatchesFashion in the UK and our wholesale business is something we are looking to grow, and that’s why we are at Pitti.
Our London HQ is in Shoreditch, where we have our design, sales and marketing teams, but I’m based at our HQ in Barcelona and my brother is based in LA.
In terms of direct sales, the US is our biggest market but the UK is the second largest. We’re actually looking to open a permanent store in London in the last quarter of this year. We’re looking at different areas, including Soho, Covent Garden and Mayfair. We’ve had a few pop-ups, including one in the Royal Exchange in London as well as one on Savile Row. But now is a good time for a permanent store as the brand has grown and we have more people we can market to and drive to the store. Also, our product offering has become significantly bigger and better.
A new edition coming soon in terms of product is a soft nubuck ‘Carry-on Backpack’ which opens up like a suitcase. I’m actually trialling it myself on this trip. It’s great because it fits under your plane seat. That will launch online at the end of August. We’ve got it here at Pitti to gauge interest on the wholesale side.
Main image: Enrico Labriola, Courtesy of Pitti Uomo
