Pitti Filati is perhaps the main and most important event in Italy as regards the world of yarns for knitwear; as well as one of the most internationally signficant.
This Florentine event, now in its 90th edition, took place at the Stazione Leopolda in Florence in a still reduced version, compared to when it took place at the Fortezza da Basso in pre-covid times. Despite this, it proved to be an event that lived up to expectations, even exceeding them by going beyond the number of visits from buyers who were expected to participate in the event, given the historical moment in which the event took place; from 2 to 4 February 2022. About 1750 buyers from over 40 foreign countries participated at the event.
Our two knitwear designers Laura and Daniele here at Maglificio FMF visited the fair for us on the first day, Wednesday 2 February, collecting research ideas at the spinning mills stands and at the trend area created by the Pitti Immagine organization. They collected new ideas on: yarns, knitting stitches and techniques aimed at innovation and research, met new companies and realities, starting points for possible collaborations, new suppliers and anything else they could learn and absorb from the day spent at the fair.
In the outdoor area in front of the entrance to the Stazione Leopolda we are greeted by two large display cases positioned on both sides of the space that welcome and guide the guests of the fair to the ticket office at the entrance. These are the exhibition spaces of the “Knitwear Parade” dedicated to the students of the Creative Knitwear Design Master. The latter is one of the few masters dedicated exclusively to knitwear in Italy. Created by the collaboration between Modateca Deanna and the Accademia Costume e Moda di Roma.
The “KNITWEAR PARADE” of the MASTER IN CREATIVE KNITWEAR DESIGN
of Accademia Costume & Moda and Modateca Deanna
At the entrance of the Stazione Leopolda, a special scenographic installation of 78 knitwear models – the Final Work and Industry Projects of the students of the 1st Level Master in Creative Knitwear Design of Accademia Costume & Moda and Modateca Deanna – told the international audience about salon for young knitwear talents, promoting the creativity of young designers and the precious partnership between companies in the sector.
From the Pitti Immagine website to the Pitti Immagine filati 90 page
Upon entering the fair after passing through the cloakroom, we immediately head to the Fashion Room stand, to view books and magazines dedicated to fashion/knitwear trends and more generally to the newest and inspiring things the stand offers us, such as makes it to every fashion event in which it participates. A large poster dedicated to the Very Peri-Pantone Color of the year- is the protagonist at the entrance to the stand, while inside, among others, we find the latest issue of the Feel The Yarn magazine with inside several garments chosen and shot by stylist and photographer Elisabetta Scarpini made by us in our latest collections both men and womenswear at Maglificio FMF.
(If you haven’t read it yet, you can read our article dedicated to the Pantone color of the year by following this link)
Soon after we begin our round of appointments at the stands of some of the spinning mills, we most frequently collaborate with. During the day we will visit Millefili, Lanificio dell’Olivo, Mister Joe, Ecafil, Cofil, Industria Italiana Filati, Papi Fabio, Iafil and Filpucci.
Among the many new and interesting yarns proposed by these spinners in their Spring-Summer 2023 collections presented at the fair, many are those with certifications such as Standard 100 Oeko-tex, Gots in reference to the percentages of certified organic fibers or Grs for regenerated ones. On the other hand, the linen yarns certified by Gots or European Flax Linen are quite rarer. We are doing a specific yarns research for the new collection of one of our customers, as we often do in our office back at the company building, where we keep almost all the color charts of the yarn collections of the spinning mills we work with. It is rarer we go instead, looking for yarns to be proposed directly at the fair where they are presented. But you know times are getting faster and faster and you have to adapt.
We are also in a very difficult historical period regarding the prices of yarns for knitwear. In the latest months, the serious energy crisis, the increases in the prices of raw materials, as well as the difficulty in finding them, have made everything even more complex.
The spinning mills with which we also collaborate have found themselves, as perhaps never before, in a position not to be able to keep the prices of yarns fixed even from one month to another, in some moments not even from one week to the next. And this seems even more incredible when you consider that until a few years ago the price of a yarn lasted for a whole season. For example, the price of a winter yarn presented in June, barring unforeseen circumstances, would not have changed until the following year, when the new collection would be released. Then perhaps the same yarn would have increased in cost, but always an increase in the order of € 0.50 cents up to €1.00/1.50, hardly more. Now the increases are often much more substantial and it has become unthinkable to have confirmed prices for an entire season.
On our way in the fair, we continue until we reach the space dedicated to Feel The Yarn. To explain to those who do not know what this brand is, we quote from their site:
FeelTheYarn is the registered trademark of the Consorzio Promozione Filati (CPF), an organization that brings together some of the most popular Italian yarn producers. FTY’s mission concerns not only the promotion of the aesthetic qualities of Italian yarns, but also their intrinsic technical qualities and the aspects that make them economically advantageous.
Year after year we are committed to organizing events, workshops and training experiences around the world. Our main goal is to make people understand how the raw material is transformed and what are the most important parts of the work of Italian spinners. Our focus is on both worsted and carded yarn, open-hand yarn, self-acting carded yarns and unique fantasy products.
For several years now, the same organization has also been involved in organizing a contest called Feel The Contest once a year with the aim of involving students and knitwear designers at an international level. Also from their site:
Feel the Contest is an international competition launched by Feel the Yarn® that involves young designers and students from all over the world, representing the most prestigious fashion schools, called to compete for the creation of 2 knitted outfits.
Here the winner of the 2021 edition Raquel De Carvalho is creating her own mini-collection prize of the Contest (some pieces are already on sale) which was exhibited at the Feel The Yarn stand during the days of Pitti Filati 90.
Among the garments on display there are some that were made by us at Maglificio FMF, as we are one of the Feel The Yarn partners who are collaborating on the creation of Raquel’s collection.
After the visit to the Feel the Yarn space and a quick lunch break, we still have to make a few visits to the stands that we are missing on the list of appointments we have taken, plus some other unscheduled ones including Ecafil which presents some beautiful cordonetti and fettuccie yarns as well as some others fancy yarns for the new SS23.
We then greet the colleagues with whom we have more often working relationships of the spinning mills that we do not visit this time at the Fair, such as Pinori whom collection we already seen before the fair and Manifattura Sesia.
In fact, we have concentrated the appointments at the fair around the yarns research we are doing, obviously not being able to visit all the stands in a single day. Regarding the other spinning mills of which new SS23 collections we still have to see; we will make appointments back at our company building in the weeks following the fair with their sales managers or mills representatives.
We thus head to the upper floor, where through multicolor stairs we reach the spaces dedicated to the trending area named for this edition: Dual. To describe this space, here is the photographic reportage we made and a brief description from the Pitti Immagine website:
“Research area: DUAL
The Spazio Ricerca, curated as in every edition by Angelo Figus and Nicola Miller, was the place where the future of spinning and fashion took shape. For spring / summer 2023: a dynamic and disruptive explosion of our thoughts, energies and ideas developed during the winter. And perhaps in reaction to the winter itself, notoriously the hardest season of the year. The title-theme “DUAL” has developed three essential concepts: freedom, quality, necessity.”
Here, instead, here are other photos from the Fair in which you can see some of the fittings made for the stands of the spinning mills, some swatches examples of a multicolor embroideries technique made with a yarn printed through an innovative technology patented by the Coloreel company that we met at the fair, up to the ecological washing process visible at the Iafil stand made possible thanks to the use of their washing / brushing balls that allows the recycling and reuse of the water used for washing the garments, making the washing process entirely sustainable.
Rendezvous to the next edition of Pitti Filati!
Next Edition:
29 giugno – 1 luglio 2022
Fortezza da Basso