The Board of Directors of Pitti Immagine announces the new dates of their leading Fashion Trade Shows
The Board of Directors of Pitti Immagine, chaired by Claudio Marenzi, met in video conference, with decisions on the calendar of trade fairs scheduled for the 2020 summer session on the agenda.
Considering the evolution of the health emergency in Italy and around the world and the concrete prospects for the extension of the restrictive measures on production and commercial activities and travel, the Board of Directors discussed and deliberated on the proposals presented by the CEO Raffaello Napoleone, who together with the heads of the various areas of the company has conducted in recent weeks an extensive review of the opinions coming from exhibitors, buyers, agents and other economic operators:
- Pitti Immagine Uomo n. 98 is confirmed and moves from 2 to 4 September (3 days), again at the Fortezza da Basso in Florence;
- Pitti Immagine Bimbo n. 91 is confirmed and moves to 9-10 September (2 days), in Fortezza da Basso;
- Pitti Immagine Filati n. 87 is confirmed and the exact location on the calendar will be discussed at the next Technical Committee of the show, scheduled for 8 April;
- Fragranze n. 18 is confirmed on the original dates, 11-13 September, at the Stazione Leopolda in Florence;
- Super n. 16 is confirmed on the original dates, 24-27 September, at the Visconti Pavilion in Milan;
- Taste No. 15, already rescheduled for the beginning of June, is cancelled and postponed to the ordinary dates of 2021 (13-15 March).
Furthermore, in accordance with the indications expressed by the Sole Director of Stazione Leopolda, Agostino Poletto, the Board of Directors of Pitti Immagine has noted and agreed on the decision to postpone the first edition of Testo (the event dedicated to Italian publishing, already rescheduled for early June) until the second half of February 2021.
“In recent weeks we have obviously been in continuous and close contact with Italian and foreign manufacturing companies – says Claudio Marenzi, president of Pitti Immagine – and with other players operating in the three sectors of textile-clothing, including organizations such as Confindustria Moda and Camera della Moda Italiana. There has been a strong demand to maintain at all costs leading appointments such as the Pitti shows, which will be the first fundamental tools to be activated to gradually get the entire commercial machine of the fashion sector back in motion. And this is what we will be working non-stop for in the coming months. Postponing Taste and Testo, two events on which our Group relies heavily, to 2021 was a painful but necessary decision. We don’t have the objective conditions to organize events like this in June, as has emerged everywhere else by now“.
The Board of Directors is also committed to supporting the company’s operations in developing all possible forms of collaboration with government and local authorities in order to make it easier for operators to take part in the shows economically, as well as making them accessible and safe for people.
“Both exhibiting companies and buyers – adds Antonella Mansi, vice-president of Pitti Immagine and president of the Florence Centre for Italian Fashion – underline the importance of the extraordinary economic measures, in the form of non-repayable grants or subsidized loans, which will encourage participation in the next international events to be held in Italy and abroad. Further packages of support for companies are under discussion at the Government and we are committed to sending our suggestions to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, through Agenzia Ice, and to Confindustria, in addition to what the Industry Fairs Committee is already doing“.
“As far as our three fashion shows are concerned,” says Raffaello Napoleone, CEO of Pitti Immagine, “it is clear that they will be exceptional editions, where our primary tasks will be to guarantee the complete sanitization of the exhibition space and to arrange an organization of the spaces and fittings that takes into account the protection of people’s safety. An experimental set-up that may also be useful on subsequent occasions. This also applies to Fragranze alla Leopolda, which we think could represent an indispensable reference point for the entire artistic and research perfumery sector at this stage“.
“The other fundamental chapter of innovation we are working on,” concludes Napoleone, “which we believe to be decisive for the promotional and commercial capacity of exhibitors, is Pitti Connect, a completely new and advanced version of the previous digital platforms, also designed to meet the specific needs of the various types of product and exhibition. Pitti Connect, with its unprecedented system of networking functions with buyers and high quality editorial structure, is more than a complementary tool to the physical fair, it is rather an organic integration of the physical fair that together with the latter will define the new face of Pitti shows. Already in the coming weeks we will present the characteristics of this project to the exhibitors, testing with them the innovations that we will gradually graft, from now until the summer, on the central body already in work“.
