Pitti Uomo’s opening this season was a rather different affair than usual; it was streamed today through the digital platform Pitti Connect, with a special event taking place at Brunello Cucinelli’s headquarters in the medieval Umbrian village of Solomeo, Italy. “I’d like to show my full support to the Italian fashion system and send a message of hope and swift recovery for the future,” he said during a Zoom preview.
In an office overlooking the factory’s garden lush with green, a replica of the sprawling booth Cucinelli usually occupies at Firenze’s Fortezza da Basso, Pitti Uomo’s historical location, was staged. Called Casa Cucinelli, it was populated by the entrepreneur’s posse of employees turned models—“the best possible ambassadors for my brand,” he calls them.
They all looked quite dapper in the Cucinelli way, wearing relaxed, casual combinations of suits, sweaters, and outerwear in every possible nuance of natural tones. The label’s strength lies in a sort of constant fine-tuning of its well-known tropes; for fall, they were updated just so from archival best-ofs. However, Cucinelli cringed at codifying them as evergreen. He believes that, although men are much more conservative than women when it comes to trends, the desire for newness will surely prevail in the near future, as it’ll signal a renewed appreciation for social interaction and physical proximity.
Perhaps it’ll also flag a recovered unguilty pleasure for a bit of peacocking, the much-missed activity usually associated with Pitti Uomo’s hyper-fashionable street style. Pointing to the soft-tailored blazer in fine camel cashmere he was wearing, he said: “See? This season the waist is slightly more fitted. It does look sexy, does it not?”
The concept of relaxed elegance is intrinsic to Cucinelli’s style, so the concern for comfort which so preoccupies other designers was only tangentially addressed in the collection. The domesticity of Zoom calls has brought about a sort of unfortunate indulgence in sloppy self-representation (his words), which is absolute anathema to him. He did acknowledge that this season’s luxurious alpaca sweaters and chunky chine cashmere knits were proposed in a half-size-bigger version than usual—but that is it. Coats and peacoats were kept slim and close to the body; piuminos in knitted cashmere were padded just slightly, so as not to look too bulging or puffed up when worn over a chic velvet tuxedo, achieving the required bella figura.
Cucinelli’s outlook is firmly optimistic; he believes that we will be recovering entirely, definitely sooner than later. “The vaccine is a turning point,” he said. “My 99-year-old father said to me that we’re experiencing today the same sort of craving for release people experienced after World War II,” he went on, and that in the end it’ll overcome the pain we have suffered “in our bodies and souls” during this long year of lockdowns. Ever the philosopher, Cucinelli was quick to substantiate his assumptions with quotes from his favorite authors: “St. Augustine said that pain is the greatest master. We’ve been scared and we’re still frightened; we’ve seen death all around us. That has changed us profoundly. We’ve felt lonely and forlorn. St. Benedict said that ‘luminous solitude’ is the source of great thinking—which is certainly true. But now we all really need to bring back the joy and the ease of living.” Asked what he missed most during his quarantine, he promptly answered: “lighthearted laughter, joking with friends—and playing a good football match.”
