PROENZA SCHOULER will be the special guest at the fourth edition of the Pitti W_Woman Precollection event, taking place in Florence on 16-19 June 2009. The event is held concurrently with the Pitti Immagine Uomo 76 fair.

Launched in New York in 2002 by the designer duo Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez, Proenza Schouler will take the stage in a special event in Florence, at a unique location, to celebrate the opening of the spring/summer 2010 season. This will also mark the very first time that Proenza Schouler will show their collection in Europe.

The designers are among the biggest names in the international fashion scene, and the Proenza Schouler brand, named after the designers’ mothers’ maiden names, has quickly become a key player in New York Fashion Week. Known for creating a style that explores contrasts in poetry and pragmatism, their collections blend a variety of disparate influences from 1960’s American art to post-minimalism, Richard Avedon and Irving Penn to Dan Flavin and Donald Judd, always reinterpreted in their striking, contemporary vision. 

The performance will exemplify the spirit of creative experimentation and understated luxury that has become the Proenza Schouler signature. An important event for the city of Florence, this also proves once again that the Pitti Immagine trade fairs are the platform of choice for the best fashion brands, with worldwide launches and other events by the biggest names in fashion today.

Quotes for Proenza Schouler:

“Jack and Lazaro have established a signature…they have an incredible talent and a real sense of how their generation wants to dress, they have a great sense of proportion; they’re in tune with what’s happening in fashion globally.” (Sally Singer, Vogue USA, Summer 2008 issue of 10 Magazine)

“Proenza Schouler has, from the start, represented sharp-edged contrasts: an uptown sensibility but with a raw energy and dense decoration contained in a taut silhouette”. (Suzy Menkes, International Herald Tribune, September 9, 2007)

“Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez, of Proenza Schouler, represent the next generation of American talent.” (Cathy Horyn, New York Times, September 9, 2008)

DIANE VON FURSTENBERG WILL BE THE STAR OF THE PITTI W SPECIAL EVENT

Diane von Furstenberg  will be the special guest at the second edition of Pitti W _ Woman Precollection, the Pitti Immagine project dedicated to women’s pre-collections. On the evening of Wednesday, 18 June the extraordinary Giardino Torrigiani in the heart of Florence will be the stunning en plein air backdrop for an elegant, glamour-filled event featuring the world première of Diane von Furstenberg’s Cruise / Pre-Spring Collection 2008 – 2009

Detail

PITTI UOMO 74

Pitti Uomo, the international platform that has succeeded in bringing together attention for established names – the most product and marketing-oriented firms – with the finest selection of niche labels and young research projects. Detail

WALTER VAN BEIRENDONCK

The special guest at this edition of Pitti Uomo is the Belgian designer Walter Van Beirendonck
Detail

FREE CYCLE – FREE MOBILITY IS THE NEW THEME-LAYOUT FOR PITTI-UOMO 74

Pitti Uomo drew its inspiration for this edition’s layout from a very current topic: environmentally sustainability mobility.
Detail

“THE CLOUD”: PITTI IMMAGINE AND MIT PRESENT THE INTERACTIVE CLOUD

Inside the Fortezza da Basso reception area visitors to Pitti Uomo will see “The Cloud”. It is a curved sculpture and an icon of the modern approach to organizing fashion fairs that Pitti Immagine is developing in conjunction with MIT – Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Detail

 All the info about Pitti Uomo 74 and Pitti W are coming soon…

Modaprima n. 64 will be premiering ready-made men’s and women’s fashion and accessory collections created-for-large-scale-distribution for the 2009 spring-summer season and sneak-peeks of the 2008-2009 fall-winter collections from 24-26 May at the MIC_Milano Convention Center, fieramilanocity (Via Gattamelata 5).
Over 150 collections will be presented at the next edition by around 70 companies specialized in private label and ready-made products for medium and large scale distribution.
Alongside the already well-known names such as Ann Max, Banana Moon, Bernardini, Creazioni Rosanna, Maglificio Venezia, Nuovi Sarti, Plissé, V.T., Zanetti Moda; there will be newcomers to the event, along with some comebacks: Calzificio Franzoni, GI.P.T., Guerzon, Hazard Couture, Kinky Star, Magnum, Manifattura Nocese, Noblesse Oblige, Paco e Ruan, Veronica Effe.

From tomorrow the PITTI IMMAGINE shows dedicated to the women’s autumn/winter 2008-2009 collections, Touch! neoZone and cloudnine, will run from 21 to 24 February 2008 in the ex-Ansaldo spaces in Via Tortona, Milan.

Click here for more info

At the Fortezza da Basso, in Florence,  the avanguard of international.

THE NAMES AND NUMBERS AT THIS EDITION: 

EXHIBITORS
A total of 103 brands (23 in the Fashion at Work section) 24 of which are from abroad.  

AREA
23,000 square meters

BUYERS                 
5.253 buyers came to the last winter edition, of these 2,163 (41% of the total) were from abroadThe main foreign markets: Germany, Great Britain, Japan, United States, France, Spain, Hong Kong, Turkey, Holland and Switzerland                           
The main growth markets: Germany, Russia, China, Korea and Taiwan.

NEW NAMES AND RETURNS
The new names and returns include: Ima Filati (Italy), Somelos Fios (Portugal), Linificio e Canapificio Italiano (Italy) and, in the FASHION AT WORK at work area, M-Lab (England) is participating in Pitti Immagine Filati for the first time.

And more over: Ecoluxe, an informative and entertaining project that puts the focus on the quality and value of natural, ecological and organic yarns;  ”A filo d’acqua“, the Pitti Filati Spazio Ricerca is the observatory and experimental laboratory where the esthetic trends in international fashion are analyzed and launched; Vintage Selection the fair featuring vintage clothing, accessories and design objects with Chinese memorabilia inspired by the figure of leader Mao Zedong, is the protagonist of the MAO FOR SALE fair-event curated by Gherardo Frassa. 

Have a look in our website at http://www.pittimmagine.com/en/fiere/filati/

THE FIRST EDITION OF PITTI W _ WOMAN PRECOLLECTION IS ALSO A GREAT SUCCESS
Almost 900 collections exhibited, 1,700 journalists from all over the world, a calendar of around one hundred fashion events encompassing the whole city of Florence and more than 34,000 visitors – an incredible number which, on the morning of the second day of the event, made it necessary to allow unrestricted access to the entrances for more than one hour: these are the figures for Pitti Uomo 73 (9-12 January 2008).  Pitti W _ Woman Precollection, the new event dedicated to women’s pre-collections, was also a great success: the first edition, which received a very positive reaction from buyers and journalists, welcomed over 6,000 visitors thus laying solid foundations for achieving even higher numbers and greater international significance in the future. All the numbers here