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Pitti Uomo to focus on cutting-edge fashion with Stefano Pilati and Telfar Clemens
Random Identities and Telfar, the labels chosen as guests of honour at the next Pitti Uomo, are already creating a buzz. The Florentine menswear event will give Italian designer Stefano Pilati the chance to showcase his first label, launched last year, while for African-American designer Telfar Clemens, it will be the opportunity to unveil the latest collection of his anti-fashion, genre-defying label. Pilati and Clemenswill present their creations on Thursday January 9, on the closing soirée of the next winter edition of Pitti Uomo, scheduled in Florence from January 7 to 10.
Lapo Cianchi, in charge of communication and events for show organiser Pitti Immagine, said that “Thursday [January 9] will be an evening for radical fashion, as both Stefano Pilati and Telfar Clemens are distinctive for their unique vision.” Whether by chance or not, in the picture Pilati gave to Pitti Immagine to be used for the event’s promotion, he is speaking on a mobile phone whose back bears the Telfar logo.
As it happens, the two designers have known and appreciated each another for many years. They have both been invited to Pitti Uomo to present their collections in separate events, only to discover they are scheduled to show on the same evening. They may therefore end up revolutionising the programme and staging one single show together. “Nothing has been decided yet, but they are discussing to see what they might do,” said Pitti Immagine.
After stints at Armani and Prada, Pilati was the creative director of Yves Saint Laurent and subsequently Ermenegildo Zegna. At the end of 2017, he set up his own menswear label, Random Identities, which from its inception has tended towards an unclassifiable, no-gender style.
Random Identities has been conceived for the digital era and features timeless, urban-inspired items with a simple black label as logo. It is positioned outside of the usual channels, being distributed via the Dover Street Market stores and Canadian e-store Ssense. Random Identities has shied away from fashion weeks, and showed for the first time last year at Ssense’s headquarters. Showing at Pitti Uomo, the leading menswear event at the start of the season, will therefore be a real première for Random Identities.
Ever since Telfar was created in 2005 in New York, it has always been positioned outside the fashion system, with an underground, inclusive spirit it describes as ‘simplex’, at once simple and complex.
“Over the course of the years, this label, which regularly interacts with other art forms, has shed its purely avant-garde image,” said Cianchi, underlining also that, in its maiden presence at Pitti Uomo, Clemens will present a new aspect of his creative world: “Florence has inspired him to produce something more sartorial.” It will all be revealed on January 9.
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