Something Old, Something New
PITTI UOMO 110 Defies Conventions
written CHIDOZIE OBASI
The Pool is the visual and conceptual theme of the Summer 2026 edition of Pitti Immagine Uomo. In the curator’s vision, the pool is a swimming pool where a young man brushes the still surface of the water with his hand, touching his own reflection.
Pitti People Pitti Immagine Uomo
Everything in this image feels suspended, a moment of waiting, of time held back. The light is icy and vivid, like in a painting by David Hockney. The mirror of the water reflects a desire that has not yet taken shape, almost like an erotic ideal at the pool’s edge. The young man, dressed in dark, elegant suiting, is not the celebrated body of swimming iconography. He’s a modern Narcissus, a disenchanted one as a matter of fact, aware of the seductive power of reflection yet choosing to break the spell.
PITTI UOMO 110 FLORENCE
Vincenzo Junior Marrazzo
PITTI UOMO 110 FLORENCE
Idan David Segal
The edition’s most prominent showcase was Polimoda, one of the world’s leading schools for Fashion and Design, which brought forth a rich selection of graduates whose innovations were inventive and traditional in equal measure. A new vision of the world shaped this season, bringing forth twenty designers from fifteen different nationalities to bring to the runway the vision of a generation shaped by instability and rapid global change. Their work reflected this fully: fearless, intimate, and profoundly human.
The collections express a deeply personal and socially engaged approach to fashion, drawing on memory, cultural heritage, and lived experience as the central pillars of their creative research. The garments do not function merely as clothing, but as emotional and conceptual statements, evidence of a generation using fashion to process, resist, and make sense of the world they have inherited. The Graduate Show marked the culmination of four years of training: a journey in which students from around the world chose Florence and Italy to develop their own creative language, drawing from their cultural roots and translating them into industry-ready work.
Aaron Dillworth
Emilie Wenckstern
Emily Horton
Lucia Romagnoli
Isabel Antonia Richter
Fashion has a tool to tell stories of memory, identity, and vision, at the professional debut of a new generation of designers. Every garment was conceived, developed, and realised in the workshops of the Manifattura Campus, under the guidance of some of the most respected professionals in the field. New to the 2026 edition, the mentorship of creative directors Luke and Lucie Meier, who have returned to the school where they trained and met twenty-five years ago, joining director Massimiliano Giornetti, An Vandevorst, and the faculty in guiding the development of the collections.
Jing Jirat Jitdee
Jakob Nittmann
Victor Brial
all images (c) Polimoda / PITTI IMMAGINE Press