Diary of a Wimpy Critic: Is Pitti Back?

What I saw, what I wore, and what I bought in Florence this season

Welcome to Wimpy! Diary of a Wimpy Critic is a series in which I document fashion week in the chaotic and unedited style befitting a runway critic who is running on little sleep but can’t stop talking. First up: Pitti Uomo 109.

Ciao ragazzi from the last day of Pitti Uomo in Florence, where I feel like I’ve been dipped in butter. As well as eating enough bistecca to ruin the digestive system of a small village (not to mention the best tiramisu of my life at Trattoria Cammillo), I’ve also seen a lot of clothes.

IS PITTI BACK?!

After the decline of hashtag menswear and the Pitti Peacock fatigue that happened in the 2010s, the general mood at the fair this time was that it felt more exciting than it has done in years. Scott Schuman AKA The Sartorialist summed it up: “I’ve missed the days when I was excited to get to the fortezza and be inspired! This season is the first in a while that everyday offered something special! Welcome back Pitti!”

The week kicked off with the Sebiro Sanpo (Suit Walk), an event that originated in Tokyo where hundreds of people gather to walk around the streets dressed to the nines. I was on the ground chatting to attendees, and frankly the vibes were so positive that it felt like evil was being healed from the humanity. Pitch for world peace: turn the G20 summit into a Sebiro Sanpo.

The Sebiro Sanpo

I found dressing for Pitti much more intimidating than dressing for fashion week in Paris or Tokyo, because it’s cliquey in a way that is so visible—you’re either a Pitti Peacock or you’re not. People make an insane amount of effort that borders on costume (mostly in a good way!) and that can be scary. But, crucially, the vibe at Pitti is not an elitist fashion vibe—it’s a nerdy vibe! Everyone’s just there to dress up, take a billion photos, and geek out about each other’s clothes. The most harmless of harmless fun. I managed to get through it mostly in my horse leather jacket from T.T, and this insane whale zip-up shawl collar sweater that I found at Suntrap in Koenji.

Pictures by @styledumonde

What I was really there for were the trio of runway shows by Hed Mayner, Shinya Kozuka, and Soshi Otsuki.

It was both Shinya and Soshi’s first time showing outside of Tokyo, which is a big deal. Almost every designer I speak to in Japan says that they want to show abroad; I hear it so often that I think yeah, sure, I’ll believe it when I see it. But then boom, it happens. Soshi and Shinya are part of the next generation of Japanese designers that, though totally different from each other, are defining a new chapter of menswear. It’s hard to overstate how hard they have worked for moments like this, and it was incredibly moving to see them both get their flowers in Florence.

Some extra thoughts on them all:

SHINYA KOZUKA

Shinya Kozuka covered the Fortezza da Basso in a blanket of fake snow, and showed clothes inspired by his recurring motifs of winter and the moon. He’d been inspired by the solitary gloves he sometimes sees during his nighttime walks around Tokyo. Unrequited gloves! And so there were gloves hanging out of knitted aprons, or needle-punched onto wool coats. One coat had 1,300 buttons and took a week to make.

In the past I’ve sometimes found his collections a little chaotic, but this was his most cohesive yet. Shinya’s work is always very sensitive and romantic; he’s a painter, really, as much as he is a designer, which is why his clothes are often covered in illustrations. The baggy and feminine silhouettes, the skirt-like pants, the soft-looking workwear… If you want an idea of how sensitive and fashionable Gen Z men are dressing on the streets of Tokyo right now, this is it.

HED MAYNER

I found Hed’s approach to tailoring fascinating; he really challenges the way we approach dressing the body, designing gestures into clothing—e.g. flipping the head of the sleeve so that it creates a shrug). He’s pushing at the edge of what’s possible with form, and his clothes look intelligent and deliciously alien. Perhaps because of that, I came away from it wondering who would wear some of these pieces. Maybe there’s someone out there who will enjoy wearing a pleated swamp-green suede tunic and slim sequinned trousers, but I can’t picture them. You can raise some interesting questions with a collection but… ya gotta sell stuff too.

SOSHI OTSUKI

Mindbendingly elegant!! Up there as one of the most era-defining collections I’ve ever seen. Soshi’s tailoring is an expression of the complicated beauty that exists in the Japanese desire to dress in Western clothing. Nobody thus far has explored the nuances of this in the way that Soshi has, which is why his salaryman suits look so fresh. This time was his best yet, and was full of colour and texture (Forest green diagonal corduroy! Orange cable knits! Pink shirts!) Collabs included sashiko suiting with Proleta Re Art and Asics zip-ups (sneaker link-up also on the way).

Soshi wasn’t speaking to press afterwards, but I managed to get the exclusive interview with him after the show. Some detail that didn’t make it into the Vogue Runway review:

The soundtrack was from Takeshi Kitano’s 2000 film Brother, composed by Joe Hisaishi—the guy who does all the incredible Studio Ghibli music. “I felt a strong affinity with the film, and this story of a Japanese yakuza who goes to America and survives through violence despite not being able to speak the language,” he told me. Soshi has been spending more and more time in Europe and New York since he won the LVMH Prize, and is having to get used to expressing himself.

Soshi also worked with a stylist for the first time this season (he used to style his collections by himself), which he says helped him unlock a new level of creativity. “The styling was a big factor this time. I was able to incorporate the opinions of people who aren’t accustomed to Japanese salaryman culture,” he said.

The week before the show, he told me that he was approaching this show at Pitti with the mindset that this one show could change his life. Mission accomplished.

RANDOM APERITIVO CHAT

• Whatever happened to date and address-core? 1017Alyx9SM and Raf Simons’s 209w39nyc Calvin Klein was really a whole thing that journalists and PRs used to have to painstakingly type out in the 2010s. It’s the kind of contrarian shit that Elon Musk names his kids. Will it make a comeback? Considering people can’t stop posting about what they looked like in 2016, maybe.

• Choppelgangers AKA doppelgängers where one is more unattractive/chopped than the other. Speaking of, I visited Martelli while in Florence to try on some of their excellente leather gloves, and the shop lady told me I looked like a young Michael J. Fox. My biggest fear: that the choppelganger is me.

• Food is better in Italy than in Japan. Not a joke, just a fact! The taste highs are more intense in Italy, and your palate is assaulted with a panache of flavour and texture that Japan can’t compete with. If Japanese food is ritalin, Italian cuisine is cocaine. The silver lining is that if I lived in Italy I would get gout, so I’m grateful that it’s mostly zaru soba on the menu rather than truffle pasta.

• Florence is a great place to stock up on cosmetics. While there I picked up the rose water and the buttery Crema al Polline from Santa Maria Novella, and in the couple of days I’ve been using it my face feels mochi-level soft. I also stumbled upon independent perfumers Profumoir while walking around the street. The Florentine brand makes scents from a single ingredient, the simplicity of which I think is a great antidote to the terminally basic Le Labo of it all (because who wants to smell like everyone else?!). So now I smell like Opium, or Oppio, which I would describe as dark, churchy, and kind of medicinal in a sexy way. As an intensely posh girl that I went to university with used to say: “HD plus! Hot and dangerous!”