Italian fashion is ready to shift up a gear with Pitti Uomo. The fair that opens the menswear season is spearheading the sector’s recovery, as it seeks to put behind it a 2025 marked by conflict and trade wars. So says politician Adolfo Urso at the opening of the 109th edition of the Florentine trade show at the Fortezza da Basso (running from January 13 to 16). “Pitti is the event that opens the year of Made in Italy, a showcase for Italian style and manufacturing. Today, as it was 70 years ago, we must be the country of the industrial renaissance in the West,” says the minister.

“Last year we faced a stormy sea. We resisted better than others and better than we could have imagined,” continues Urso, who, among the government’s measures, recalls work on introducing anti-ultra-fast-fashion regulations and a three-year hyper-amortisation scheme. Also in the pipeline is the SME bill, currently before the Chamber of Deputies, which contains several tools to support businesses, including the transfer of skills between generations, with the possibility of using retiring workers to train those under 35. “Beauty and the well-made must also go hand in hand with respect for sustainability and legality,” Urso stressed.

“2026 will also be the year of new markets,” continues the minister, who welcomes the EU-Mercosur agreement being finalised next week. “Other free-trade agreements are in the pipeline, with the United Arab Emirates, India, all the way to South-East Asia and Oceania. Finally, starting with Pitti and at major Italian events, we will, for the first time, open the House of Made in Italy: a Ministry office that will help companies with investment (Transition 5.0 or tax credits) and internationalisation,” Urso reveals.

“In the past two years the fashion system has lost 13-15 billion in turnover. 2025 was a complex year, but we have hit rock bottom. Now we can see clearer skies ahead and we have to push small and large companies together to recreate a new ecosystem starting from Pitti, from Tuscany,” echoes Luca Sburlati, president of Confindustria Moda.

Among the issues brought to the table by the head of the federation is the mobilisation of private savings. “It would give a boost to the listing of small businesses.” There are also high expectations for the 10-year strategic plan, “which we will present to the government in the coming weeks. The goal is to take the unique strengths of our country abroad as well. We hope to extend the agreement with Mercosur to countries such as Mexico, known for cotton sourcing,” Sburlati explains.

“Pitti is the only truly global fair for menswear and the only one that has evolved in recent years,” argues Antonio De Matteis, president of Pitti Immagine. “We must also protect the distribution chain, which is suffering today. We need to find a new generation of retailers and restore safety to the streets of our historic centres,” says De Matteis, who reveals he is studying the first overseas editions of Pitti Uomo. “We are evaluating opportunities to take the event beyond national borders and stage one-off editions to make our brands known in new, expanding markets.”

“Fashion is in crisis and is split between those who are slowing down and those who are flying. But there is also strong momentum at a national level in the interest of the industrial fabric,” says Matteo Zoppas, president of ICE. “At Pitti this year we are bringing 350 buyers, almost half of those present at the fair. They are strategically important. Pitti as a brand attracts global excellence and we are considering possible international expansion. From the government we have more and more resources and they need to be invested in this direction. There is also a spotlight on second-hand, which will reach 250 billion in turnover in the short term,” Zoppas notes.

At the end of the conference, Raffaello Napoleone, CEO of Pitti Immagine, presented the Pitti Immagine 2026 award to UniCredit, the fair’s main partner since 2020. “Giorgio Armani said that fashion is the strongest cultural expression because it tells us where we are and where we want to go. Our fashion-bank partnership started during Covid. We want to lay the foundations for a collaboration that truly adds value to Made in Italy. In Italy we have 50,000 companies linked to fashion manufacturing (in France there are 35,000). The Italian fashion system is too fragmented. It needs support to grow,” Areni concludes.