What’s The Deal With Those Pitti Peacocks, Anyway?

While I’ve only attended Pitti post-social media, one can easily imagine an earlier time in the trade show’s 45-year history when the Pitti Peacocks, the men who dress to the nines for the biannual menswear fair, were more authentic—simply exceptionally well dressed Italian men sitting on that famed wall because it was somewhere to sit, to smoke, to talk entirely free of photo opportunities, taking a man-sized inhale of your expensive cigar because you’re a red-blooded Italian and your machismo just can’t quit, not because Scott Schuman pointed his Canon camera at you. These days, the Peacocks’ posturing is pretentious at best and flat out obnoxious at worst. “If I see one more man in a three-piece suit and a hat with a feather in it pointedly check their wristwatch or adjust their cuff I might punch them in the face,” said one fashion editor. Then there came a point when it looked like some saboteur might save her the trouble. On day three as we arrived at the fair, there was a heaving crowd of people outside the Pitti gates, and the lights on the fire brigade trucks were flashing from within. “Apparently, there’s a bomb inside,” said one man. He didn’t look overly concerned. At first we were worried so we left the Fortezza for coffee and biscotti until a friend texted to say it was just a scare. Called in by who, we wondered? A sabotage by Berlin’s competing but embattled Bread and Butter trade show? And then the rumor mill attested to a controlled explosion. Probably some poor sod’s misplaced samples, and while the dandies escaped certain death, punches in the face were no longer ruled out entirely. Read more at Fashion Unfiltered.