My Time at Pitti Uomo 97

Last week I had the opportunity to go to Pitti Uomo 97 in Florence with the Styleforum crew. My job was photographer: I shot street style for the Styleforum Journal, and also basically whatever else Arianna (the editor of the Journal) or Fok (the owner of Styleforum) wanted me to shoot. That included following Peter (@urbancomposition, who I thought of as our “talent”) around and shooting his various meetings with people and appointments with brands. It also included documenting the podcasts they recorded with several special guests. Eva Kuhle, owner of Epaulet, was also there working with us, but also to do her own recon work for her shop in LA.

It was a spectacular week that exceeded my expectations in every way. The crew all worked extremely well together; everybody I met was exceptionally friendly; the brands and makers we talked to were super cool; the events were fantastic; and the unlimited negroni’s at Harry’s Bar for the WM Brown party were delicious.

For me, going with an established crew like that was ideal, since I’d never been. It allowed me to be introduced to people through Peter, brought along to appointments to meet makers like Akshat and Varvara of 100 Hands, and also to have a defined job to do to structure my day and fill any downtime I had.

I had a little bit of doubt before going—confident but uncertain. Plus I was taking a new camera body I’d never shot fast-paced action with before (the very affordable full-frame mirrorless Canon RP). All of those doubts melted away as soon as I saw the photos on the first morning. Pitti is great, I discovered, because everybody there has an established rising-tide-lifts-all-boats mentality where everybody is tagging everybody and re-sharing everybody’s photos on Instagram. So the first afternoon, Simon Crompton of Permanent Style reposted one of my photos to his 130,000 followers, and boom, we were off to the races. The rest of the week, some of the most stylish dudes there liked my images and requested to repost them—Kenji Cheung of Brycelands, David Coggins, Jake Grantham of Anglo-Italian, Buzz Tang from Anthology, and others. It’s a virtuous cycle of mutually beneficial promotion for each other and it was very gratifying to see my work not only turn out well (a personal assessment) but to also have it be recognized and appreciated by others.

Highlights from the week include the great parties thrown: Plaza Uomo’s party Tuesday night, where I met several new people (shout out Philippe, Andreas, Matt and Justin); The WM Brown party at Harry’s Wednesday night, where the Negronis flowed freely; The Styleforum private dinner that same night, where about 20 people from SF-affiliated companies enjoyed a five-course dinner at a Michelin-starred restaurant; Also the podcast recording sessions, where really great guys like Ethan Newton, Simon Crompton and Milad Abedi (plus several more, that’s not all) stopped in to give their thoughts to Peter and Eva on various subjects. I also got to meet the people behind two of my favorite tailoring shops, both out of Hong Kong—Anthology and Prologue. We met Buzz and his crew (including excellent photographer Charlie) from Anthology for breakfast and a nice chat one morning, and met up with Jerry and Chiwang from Prologue for a chat and to get measured.

And Pitti couldn’t be in a more lovely city. Florence, my wife’s and my favorite Italian city, was charming as always. Peter and I had a killer view from our Airbnb right onto the Piazza del Duomo. Being essentially a Medieval city, everything is walkable in Florence—10 minutes to the Fortezza where Pitti is held, 10 minutes to the other apartment where we recorded the podcasts, 10 minutes to Harry’s Bar. There were lights strung all about the city streets as well, making the walks home after dark magical. The weather was excellent, above freezing at night and sunny Wednesday on.

After Pitti was over, I took a personal trip up north to Bergamo for the weekend. The headquarters of the Italian branch of my church are there. Our head pastor and his wife embodied perfect Italian hospitality, and we enjoyed a leisurely weekend, including a wonderful afternoon and lunch at Lake Iseo with a group of church members (get the baked bass at Il Buco in Iseo, it is incredible).

Check out all my street style photos at Styleforum, and also my Instagram where I’ve put Story Highlights from each day (which includes random pics and videos shot throughout the day, including my photo gear walkthrough, which many people really liked, not just the official street style images).

If you’ve ever thought about going to Pitti but aren’t sure it would be worthwhile, definitely don’t hesitate. The people are warm, the fair has lots of really great makers showcasing outstanding goods, the city is wonderful, and the parties are great.

Hope to see you there next time.

Below, some photos I shot. Copyright belongs to Styleforum.