Pitti Immagine spring/summer 2014

Is never easy to sit down and make some considerations after a trade show, either dedicated to design or fashion, without resulting overly critical. Working in this field (as an agent, a buyer or a blogger) season after season takes away the freshness of the first times, that genuine astonishment at seeing something new and unexpected. It is said that in fashion nothing can no more be invented, that everything has already been seen and that all comes back, and in part this is true. But if so, what remains in the end? What drives me to communicate with you every day? The enthusiasm. If that (small and nasty) hall of emerging brands would have been removed from this edition of Pitti, I would for sure have come back unsatisfied. I would have spoken of the big names always afraid that someone can copy their collections (that they’ve copied from someone else), those that tell you “if you are not already a customer, unfortunately, the company doesn’t want you to view the collection” (you really have to explain this to me) and of course the “no pictures” ones. But no. I’m glad of the undergrowth of small independent designers, the fledgling start-ups, those that always wear a smile. And I’m proud to say that in the year of the blackest crisis, the young Italians roll up their sleeves and create. Maybe for them there won’t always be a place in the biggest stores, but for sure, there will be a space between these pages.