Pitti Filati was as pleased with its results as Pitti Uomo had been a couple of weeks before. Organisers said it was another edition beyond expectations, tapping into the optimism fostered in the first few months of the year.

Florence is such as draw for the fashion world that it is almost guaranteed an audience when conditions get better. But visitors don’t just attend for the ambience, the fair is well organised, having probably the best digital platform so far, and the Italian trade and official bodies pull out all the stops. It is regarded as a place where trends are made, and designers bounce ideas off each other. There were trends of colour, texture, the mixing of naturals and synthetics, the rise of sustainability and the examination of complex developments in machinery and blends.

PItti FIlati, with the other leading textile and yarn fairs at the beginning of the year, was the result of a long gestation during the fallow two years of the pandemic. There was a sense of mission in most of the firms’ statements to cement the reputation of this stage of the manufacturing journey for early intervention, all stressing sustainable thinking and a strong open-minded approach to invention like at pioneers in complete traceability at pioneers Botto Poala.

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