Mods with Pitti Uomo on women's and men's style
From June 16 to June 20, the Pitti Uomo spring and summer season took place - Florentine exhibition of clothes in the fortress Fortezza da Basso, which defines half a year ahead what men's fashion will be and traditionally opens the season of fashion weeks. Every year the exhibition is visited by about a thousand men dressed in fluff and dust. We talked to visitors about the innate sense of style, a 300-square-meter dressing room and femininity.
Style is a work with several often opposing, sources of inspiration that can characterize, describe your personality. Modern men's style is, however banal it may sound, a mix of styles and different brands of clothing: high fashion and streetwear. I like it when formal things meet in a casual, relaxed style. Men at the Pitti Uomo show are extremely old-fashioned. However, the culture does not matter what is happening around - seriously or window dressing. Because it is a fashion in its pure form, which will leave its imprint in time.
The essence of my views on the actual women's style fully reflect the things I release under my Off-White label: these are classics like a coat and wide-brimmed hat and at the same time the presence of street-style elements, sneakers, wide jeans, and crop tops. I have a whole ton of clothes myself. I am a real consumer and I collect all the things that I like. I am a fan of good design - this is both Raf Simons and Supreme. At the same time I get dressed for half a minute. Just pick up a thing from the floor and go.
Modern male style exists at the junction of androgyny and street fashion. Both influences are very noticeable. Especially New Yorkers, hip-hop and the desire of designers to create, and buyers to accept and share some kind of concept are to blame. The reason lies in the fact that the society has finally relaxed, but everyone still wants to be original. Today, people interpret in their own style everything that surrounds them, and a lot of things surround us — in general, this is how modern style is formed. Add to this urbanism - we live in stuffy, glass and concrete cities, we want to make this environment more comfortable. Collaborations of mixed brands today affect fashion more than the fashion of these collaborations.
With modern women's style, in fact, there are processes that are symmetrical to the evolution of the masculine style. I have already mentioned androgyny. So, if men allow themselves to move in the direction of the female wardrobe, feeling within themselves stocks of unrealized creative potential (the podiums meanwhile offer men more different silhouettes, designers change proportions and accents), women, on the contrary, have calmed down with the forms and prefer to hide them for something shapeless. In any case, everyone today seeks to speak through clothes.
Instead of dressing for a long time in the morning, I meditate. I came to this Pitti Uomo with almost one plastic bag in my hand. Just kidding I took only the most necessary and all black.
Modern male style for me - This is a timeless classic and bohemian. I can wear a vest and a jacket together, and under the bottom of a T-shirt or tightly cover the shirt. Sometimes I gather in five minutes, sometimes I hang for hours in front of the mirror, tormented that I have nothing to wear! My wardrobe is bigger than my bedroom. I am not kidding! I buy, but they still give me so many things, send me a whole bunch of gifts that they barely fit. If I go somewhere, I take a complete set with me: three blazers, three pairs of trousers, a bunch of white shirts and be sure to wear sweatshirts with sneakers. I can not live without training.
Modern feminine style? I don't know anything about it. I like the costumes.
I was born with this style, it is in my blood. This is my style and the style of my fathers. This is the only thing that is impossible to buy. Style is a statement before a statement. You haven't said anything yet, but I already understood everything about you. I dress in about three minutes. When I travel a week, I take one pair of white trousers, one pair of jeans, one pair of chinos, three T-shirts and two shirts. Pretty simple. I leave the jacket at home. I have a grandissimo, not a wardrobe. It occupies about 300 square meters in my four houses.
Modern feminine style for me embodies my wife. She prefers classics and elegance: discreet dresses, blazers, lightweight pants, skirts, uncluttered shoes. Everything should be simple, but inside there should be elegance, which means femininity.
Modern men's style -This is a classic style in a modern design: bright accessories, a combination of different fabrics, color, monotony. Men on the Pitti Uomo look the same, but if the eye is squished, then you can discern the "halftones": it was Neapolitan or Roman. All because of the combination of classic things a bit to greatly differ from each other. A hat is a hat, a suit is a suit. At the same time, street fashion can cost as much as classic. Just think about the existence of rare collaboration sneakers for five hundred dollars. Remember the 2011 Hermès x Vans collaboration: sneakers for 500 bucks? Easy! You pay for a unique style and design. In men's fashion street style is rapidly gaining momentum. And all because the luxury market could no longer stay away from such a huge market, such as sneakers. This is a fat piece of cake that everyone wanted to grab, producing their luxury sneakers, which you will wear with a luxury suit or super expensive jeans. I myself dress without effort, without straining. You do not have to try to look good. Everything should be more natural, but taste must be developed to rely on it at a gathering of exactly five minutes. I can not imagine myself without ten white shirts - they are suitable for any suit. Do not need much complicate your life.
In modern feminine style, I like most of all how women borrow and wear men's wardrobe items. Men's wide trousers and shoes are beautiful. A girl in a huge jacket is really touching.
Modern male style? I don't know anything about it. My personal style is very Italian. This is not fashion and fashion - this is exactly the style, I repeat, very, very Italian. I dress for about half an hour - I really love this whole process, because it is my passion, it is very easy for me to choose and combine clothes. I change clothes twice a day. I have a very large wardrobe, which is full of things: about 100 jackets, about 50 suits, 20 coats, 200 shirts, 200 ties, 100 pairs of shoes. Yes, actually, I love clothes. All the things I produce myself - I have my own brand Sartoria Milanese, typically Milan. Other brands of clothes, I just do not wear.
The girl is beautiful when tastefully dressed. She must be elegant, otherwise femininity is lost. She must be charming. For example, look at that lady in white pants and a blue blazer. She is very elegant.
Modern men's style - These are classic things that are made from high-tech materials. An example is a collection of colored suits from neoprene by Raf Simons. In my brand, I show classic things: wide trousers, T-shirts, but made from futuristic, innovative (and, importantly, natural) materials. Therefore, you do not look like the hero of "Star Trek". Italian fashion is very important - it is the code of world luxury, bling bling code.
I have some clothes in the wardrobe, because they need to be consumed carefully, as if you are reading a book. Page by page. When you create a thing, you put it together like a sentence: you choose a material, a cutting technique, a form, a style — you combine a mass of elements together to create a harmonious work. Therefore, if you don’t understand any kind of clothes, it’s difficult for you, then you need to look into the dictionary - we don’t know all the words in the world. It is worth remembering that to translate design language, fashion, it is not enough to look at one magazine every month, you need to use several sources. Taste is continuous learning. When I get dressed, I choose one main thing, the central element, and push myself away from it.
Modern feminine style is excessiveness, size, volume, bulky silhouette, which at the expense of fabrics becomes not masculine, but feminine. Street style today is strongly connected with high fashion, because people want to feel comfort and involvement in high fashion at the same time. This is how luxury casual appeared.
Modern male style is difficult to describe - it is not universal. Italians choose costumes and love to look polished. Americans prefer comfort, dimensionless things, which is convenient when there is one hour between work and a party. The Japanese love the details and love telling the story with their looks: if it's rock'n'roll, then it will be rock by 200 percent and even more, if hip-hop, then you can't go wrong - it will be huge baggy trousers in which can drown. Personal look and a good tailor - what else does a man need? When I dress, I think about myself, about my culture, about convenience, personal experience. I'm going as a Lego designer: for details, choosing the right one for the other. I have a few things in the wardrobe. Large wardrobe is not needed at all. It's all about accessories. Say, here's a shirt and pants, if you add a straw hat to them - there will be one effect, if you remove it, put on your glasses and tie a scarf around your neck - is another matter.
I am very inspired by female style. I grew up among six women: a mother, a grandmother and four sisters. I watched them choose jewelry, mix prints, textures, colors. Artists just! Girls learn this all as a child when they play with dolls. My grandmother wore fabulous beads, mom wore fabulous dresses. I looked at them and thought, and how to repeat it, only in the masculine style? Therefore, I can easily put on a dress shirt, trousers, dress shoes and various accessories. The modern girl is able to wear men's things so as to look feminine. Generally, of course, masculinity is one of the main women's trends. This tomboy style is simply undergoing change. And in fact, this is a certain challenge, dressing like this, a girl should feel oversexually, feminine. It should attract gait, smooth movement, not clothing.
The standard of male stylefor me there will always be a classic. To create the future, you need to take the past as a basis. From my point of view, a man should appreciate himself, including using clothes. Now it is rare. After all, around became less personal style, everything is repeated. I own a shop and studio in Florence, which is already thirty years old. I don’t like the demand for clothes in stores, so I offer unique items that my workshop creates. Personally, my wardrobe consists of items purchased 20-30 years ago, and it continues to grow, but the paradox: all these things are still relevant, which cannot be said about fashion in general, which is constantly changing and bringing you down. I dress for about five minutes and do not think about combinations. It's all about the instincts and mood. Our appearance is mainly influenced by the way we got up.
I do not like women's fashion, because it is inherently very pretentious and intricate.
I started to dress elegantly a year and a half ago. I was inspired by Nick Wooster - an icon of modern masculine style. Here, even a beard has grown. Friends call me Worcester's nephew. I am very impressed. I like the details: for example, I can twist and tie a scarf not on the neck, but on the leg. I have a giant wardrobe - I go shopping every weekend. Every, you know? Everywhere, wherever I go, with me a suitcase with clothes in 30 kilograms. In a hotel room where I stayed in Florence, a real disaster - everything is inundated with clothes. The dressing process takes about half an hour every day. And you try to bring in order only one such beard, like mine.
The style of men with Pitti really is very monotonous, but it is more comfortable for me to be in such an environment, to be a part of this movement, than part of the same gray suits and perishable life. Here, by the way, there are girls who also wear expensive suits, Italian. Very pretty.
Photo: Gioconda Rafanelli & August Kaciuruba