Highlights once again its leading role for excellent spinning and for future trends in international knitwear.
The data on the final turnout of Pitti Filati 91 (29 June – 1 July, Florence) showed very high numbers of buyers, which go hand in hand with the opinions collected among the professionals, all positive and fully satisfying. In the three days of the show, buyers exceeded 3,000 total admissions, almost double compared to a year ago, 50% of which from abroad, representing more than 50 countries.
The community of yarn people – as it has been defined in recent days – has returned with enthusiasm to find itself in Florence.
“The return to the Fortezza da Basso after two however positive editions at the Stazione Leopolda gave further energy to this excellent edition of Pitti Filati – says Raffaello Napoleone, CEO of Pitti Immagine – from all points of view. It is not just a question of the numbers referring to the presence of buyers, who even in a final report are the first to draw attention – especially when it comes to the best international knitwear factories and the creative departments of the most important fashion houses in the world. Rather, it is a concert of elements: starting with the quality of the collections and raw materials, ending with the degree of technological and stylistic innovation and to have vision and look ahead in a year and a half. We must be sincerely admired in thinking about how many and what investments – in machines, research, people, ideas – are behind what we have seen in the spaces of our exhibitors, committed to keeping in dynamic balance the need to satisfy the requests coming from a strong global recovery in demand with the objective problems that this same recovery is posing, in terms of procurement of materials, control of energy and logistics costs, management of price lists. A leading fair is not just business, supply and demand, orders and payments: it is comparison, exchange of knowledge, broadening of perspectives, culture and imagination, services … and we organizers have tried to do our part, with an edition particularly accurate of the Research Area or with the eccentric trajectories of the works between fashion and pop costume by Maurizio Vetrugno or with the green competitions dedicated to the brightest students of the great international fashion schools … “.
These are the top 15 foreign countries for the number of buyers: France, United Kingdom, Germany, United States, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Belgium, Portugal, Romania, Ireland.
Looking at the performance of the various markets, the numbers of all the main European countries are showing great growth, while the performances of buyers from the United States, the United Kingdom and Turkey are excellent. Still contained – but this was already foreseen – the number of buyers from the Far East, for whose countries there are still strong restrictions on travel due to the pandemic.
Unanimous and positive opinions also arrived for the new INTOTHEWILD Research Area, curated by Angelo Figus and Nicola Miller, which projected the audience into the fashion trends of autumn- winter 2023; and for the WILD LIFE WILD HEAT exhibition, a special and unpublished installation by the artist Maurizio Vetrugno in the main hall of the Central Pavilion, the result of the collaboration between the Pitti Discovery Foundation and the Luigi Pecci Center for Contemporary Art in Prato.
