Pitti Filati, where trends are born

FLORENCE, ITALY – Pitti Filati 71 is open at the Fortezza da Basso, Florence, Italy. Friday 6 July 2012 is the last day. Pitti Immagine Filati, the key international event for the knitting yarn industry will be held at the Fortezza da Basso in Florence from 4 to 6 July 2012.

The fair is a research lab and observatory that pinpoints new global lifestyle trends. Pitti Filati presents international excellence to an audience of buyers from the world over and designers for the major names in fashion who come to Florence seeking creative ideas and inspiration. The 71st edition of Pitti Filati will feature world previews of knitting yarn collections for the 2013-2014 fall/winter season.

The structure of the Spazio Ricerca and Fashion at Work area, where creativity and design reign, is in a state of permanent evolution. The experimental observatory where trends are analyzed and launched, the Spazio Ricerca at Pitti Filati 71 explores what made Italy great. Renaissance is the title-theme for this edition: the culture of designing and manual-craft skill in making. This contemporary Renaissance feeds on history but looks to the future. The main themes are drawing and design. One is an extension of the other, an ongoing dialogue between tradition and innovation. Drawing and design are the far ends of a long process in which history and tradition relate with today’s new needs and new languages. It is a timeline reaching from the sixteenth century to the present. The Spazio Ricerca is staged by fashion designer Angelo Figus and knitwear expert, Nicola Miller, and the layout is by architect Alessandro Moradei.

WonderFood Pitti is the key theme for Pitti Filati 71 simply because, now more than ever, we are all talking about food. It is a theme close to contemporary lifestyle issues and Pitti will tackle it starting from the land where food is grown and produced. Culture, love and a taste for what eat we “via nature”: a way of getting back to the fundamental reasons of living and a way to reinvent aesthetics, ecology and the urban panorama. The site-and-symbol of WonderFood Pitti is the forecourt of the Fortezza da Basso, right in front of the Main Pavilion, where visitors will be able to see incredible but real gardens – designed by Oliviero Baldini – watched over by mannequin-scarecrows wearing clothes designed for the occasion by a select group ofinternational brands that exhibited at Pitti Uomo.

Pitti Filati presents the third edition of Feel the Yarn, the competition for aspiring knitwear designers selected from the graduates of the world’s major fashion schools. Sponsored by Toscana Promozione – Agenzia di Promozione Economica della Toscana and ICE – ( Istituto nazionale per il Commercio Estero – Italian Trade Commission) in cooperation with CPF – Consorzio Promozione Filati and Pitti Immagine, Feel the Yarn is moving ahead with its training program via the world’s most prestigious fashion and design schools to expand the creative content of yarns manufactured by the best mills in Tuscany.

And we should also mention the birth of the first social network enterprise dedicated entirely to knitting yarns: feeltheyarn.it. The result of the cooperation between Confindustria Prato, CPF – Consorzio Promozione Filati and Toscana Promozione, feeltheyarn.it is the first social channel totally dedicated to yarns produced by companies in the Prato district.

These are the 10 International institutes of fashion design involved in the project: Royal College of Art (UK), Bunka Fashion College (Giappone), Parsons The New School for Design (USA), BIFT Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology (Cina), Facultade Santa Marcelina (Brasile), The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (Cina), Donghua University (Cina), Hochschule Niederrhein – University of Applied Sciences (Germania), Hochschule Luzern – Design & Kunst (Svizzera) and Polimoda (Italia).