Pitti Uomo 92 draws fewer attendees

In spite of a drop in attendance, Pitti Uomo organizers say they are pleased with the latest edition. Following the show's January session, the men's fashion trade fair, which took place June 13-16 in Florence, recorded a 7.3% decline in the number of buyers. Just over 19,000 buyers attended this 92nd edition for spring / summer collections, compared to 20,500 in June 2016. The total gate for the June session tallied more than 30,000 visitors overall.

“We suffered a lot because of the transportation strike, which especially hindered Italian buyers. But this edition remains one of the best in the big picture. Everything was very successful within the Fortezza da Basso compound, as were all events outside the fair grounds," Raffaello Napoleone, head of Pitti Uomo, told FashionNetwork.com.

Italian buyers were down 8-9%, which is partly because the comparison figure of the 2016 summer session marked a record over the last ten years. That edition saw a 3% increase in Italians, or some 12,100, and a 2.4% increase in foreign buyers, or 8,400. The session that just closed drew 8,000 non-Italian buyers. In 2009, only 6,000 buyers came from outside Italy.

Europe remains the main customer for Pitti Uomo menswear. The top twenty buyers by country rank as follows: Germany, Japan, Spain, the UK, the Netherlands, China, France, Switzerland, Turkey, the United States South Korea, Belgium, Austria, Portugal, Russia, Sweden, Greece, Denmark, Poland and Canada.

Summing up show activity by nationality, show organizers said in a statement that "results were positive" for Japan, Spain, the United States, South Korea, Russia, Eastern and Northern Europe, Australia and Canada; attendance from France, Turkey and the Netherlands remained stable; and that there was a slight drop in visitors from China, the United Kingdom and Germany.

Such results are a pretty accurate reflection of the current economic situation, such as instability for Chinese buyers, Russia in recovery mode and the British struggling with the impact of Brexit. But they also are an indicator of the shifts happening in fashion retail with the rise of multi-brand e-shop over smaller traditional bricks-and-mortar boutiques.

Pitti Uomo 92 draws fewer attendees

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