‘Live Movie’ was the theme for this the 86th edition of Pitti Immagine Bimbo and boy did it live up to the billing, with big anniversaries, events, and catwalk shows making for this vibrant extravaganza of the kid’s fashion calendar. Pitti Bimbo now caters for some of the biggest names along with medium independents right down to fledgling first time labels. There is something for everyone at Pitti with the show drawing visitors, buyers and press from all over the world to the beautiful city of Firenze, Florence, Italy. Pirouette was there for two reasons, firstly to cover the show for our behind the scenes web doc with NYC based children’s fashion photographer Molly Magnuson; and secondly to launch the Pirouette One to Watch Awards accompanied by Pirouette founder Florence Rolando. The events were big, the catwalk production outstanding and the collections vibrant. This is how it went….
starting with events…
Kid’s Fashion from Spain
We had a little preview of the ‘Kid’s Fashion from Spain’ catwalk show the day before at rehearsals. The show did not disappoint with the ‘school theme’ acting as a playful backdrop to the collections. Top of the class was Tartaleta.
The Apartment fashion show
The Apartment is the space dedicated to luxury independents. It’s a beautiful setting with individual showrooms for labels to present their collections. The cinema themed catwalk show was a real favourite, whilst the models showed off the collections on the runway the other children sat on old wooden cinema seats awaiting their turn in the spotlight. The Pero butterfly headdresses made a stunning visual impact whilst the Nikolia, Velveteen and Pero collections all really caught our attention.
KidzFizz Colour carpet
KidzFizz is the exhibitor space dedicated to medium/ small creative independent labels. The ‘Colour Carpet’ theme was was bright and bold whilst the presentation was simple – no dancing, no choreography just straight down the coloured carpet and pose. This allowed the collections to remain the central focus of this vibrant show. Brands that impressed included Andorine, Le Mu London, Igloo+Indi and Unlabel.
Monnalisa 50th Anniversary. A golden Age
No expense was spared to mark Monnalisa’s 50 years in the children’s fashion industry. Big, loud, shiny and golden. It was a privilege having backstage access to capture the celebratory pre show ambiance. We met co-founder and creative designer Barbara Bertocci, who gave us some insight to their longevity. Despite Monnalisa’s golden jubilee Barbara remains down to earth, and very lovely which might explain their enduring success.
Photography by Molly Magnuson for Pirouette
Pirouette One to Watch Winners Pitti Bimbo #86
Look out for these two wonderful winners. Emerging labels Novel Walk & Mum of Six were presenting their collections at Pitti for the first time. In fact it was Mum of Six’s first trade show. Two super labels to watch out for!
Fashion: MUMOFSIX
With a wealth of experience from already owning her own multi-brand children’s fashion store whilst still managing to bring up six children Stella Aminova has created a fun beautiful quality children’s collection. Brand new label check them out!
Design: Novel Walk
Super cool and wearable children’s shoe collection from Spain, deserved winners and ‘One to Watch’ in the future for sure!
#CoupDeCoeur #pb86
#CoupDeCoeur – presentation show rooms
Round of applause goes to Laura Egloff, Velveteen founder and designer – A magical woodland complete with trees and animals. Fabulous!
Bright, bold, flowers, snow balls and little dolls – A fantastic, crazy wonderland. Super!
#CoupDeCoeur-Collections
Beautiful sophisticated luxury, this collection…wonderful!
The WOW dress of the show
Cherries and leopard…Love wins!
Emilio Pucci -sneakers of the world kid
Super cool for super mini-me style…
The Nest – the space dedicated to young labels, curated by Dimitra, Little Pop Up
Pirouette #CoupDeCoeur Kiboro, Kaleidoscope ,LiiLu, Wonderers and of course #Pirouette12Watch winner Novelwalk
To see more of the show with video interviews, catwalk edits and more of Molly’s wonderful photography go to Pirouette Pitti Bimbo #86 Web documentary
https://www.pirouetteblog.com//webdoc/pitti86/
Photography by Molly Magnuson for Pirouette
Pitti Immagine Bimbo #86
578 brands exhibiting
Total number of registered buyers: 6,870 registered compared to 6,700 a year ago
Total number of visitors: 10,000 overall during the three days of the fair.
The final attendance figures – buyer attendance was up by +2.5% compared to a year ago, with an increase of around 1% in foreign buyers and growth of +3.5% for the Italian market:
With regard to the foreign markets:
- Russian buyers up (+4.5%), which was confirmed as the fair’s top market, the return of Spanish buyers (+11%)
- Japanese (+12%),
- United Kingdom (+2%),
- Germany (+2% in terms of stores present),
- Ukraine (+9%),
- Greece (+17%),
- Portugal and Ireland static
- Americans (+18%) and positive figures also for Brazil and Turkey.
- Buyers from Netherlands, Belgium and South Korea static with a year ago
- France and China slight drop
Overall almost 2,450 foreign buyers took part in this edition.
The Italian market also showed itself to be very responsive with total attendance up by +3.5% which, when viewed in terms of the number of stores, is even greater (+5%).
Ranking of the fair’s top 15 reference markets:
- Russia at the top (271 buyers)
- Spain (203)
- United Kingdom (184)
- Germany (148)
- Turkey (103)
- Ukraine (102)
- Netherlands (96)
- China (95)
- France (87)
- Greece (69)
- United States (54)
- Belgium (52)
- Japan (48)
- Switzerland (47)
- Portugal (47).
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