Yesterday the Board of Directors of Pitti Immagine was held by video conference, chaired by Claudio Marenzi, mainly dedicated to assessing the progress of participation at the physical fairs scheduled for next September (Pitti Uomo, Bimbo, Filati, Fragranze, and Super).

Following a lengthy discussion, based on the information provided by the CEO, Raffaello Napoleone, and by the General Manager, Agostino Poletto, the Board acknowledged the insufficient number of confirmations of attendance as well as the ongoing state of difficulty of the companies and decided to postpone the physical fairs until January 2021. Encouraged by the work and investment carried out in order to launch the Pitti Connect platform, as well as the approval and interest that this initiative is registering among members of the trade, it gave us a mandate to concentrate all our energy this summer onto the entirely digital version of the above fairs which will be open to all exhibitors.

“This was a very painful yet inevitable decision,” says Claudio Marenzi, President of Pitti Immagine “dictated by the conditions of operational and economic difficulty in which the majority of the manufacturing companies and retailers – shops, department stores- find themselves and by the uncertainties that continue to persist regarding the modalities of traveling from one country to another, including quarantine restrictions, which have obviously heavily conditioned the plans of international buyers. I should add that the prolonged absence of any certainties regarding non-repayable government and European economic support for taking part in the fairs, greatly affected the exhibitors’ decisions. The very recent approval of the Italian decree referred to the 394/81 fund is a good sign at last, even though the effects will mostly be felt from next fall. From our side, we deeply believed in and are fully convinced about maintaining the role of the Pitti fairs as an essential instrument of commercial promotion at the service of Italian fashion and, in particular, of the fabric of preeminent small and medium sized businesses, together with the artisan companies that we have always represented. Therefore the regret that this situation signifies for the industrial fashion system is combined with the disappointment of not being able to contribute, through the attraction capacity of the fairs, already this summer, to the relaunch of Florence which, in the meantime, despite all the many difficulties, is responding with strength and solidarity in order to build the foundations for a safe new start”.

Learn more about PITTI CONNECT here: www.fuckingyoung.es/pitti-immagine-presents-pitti-connect