Martine Rose Is Ready to Step Onto the Florence Streets, and the World Stage, at Pitti Uomo – WWD
Tue 10 Jan
The London-based Rose will make her international debut as the special guest designer at Pitti Uomo, with plans to turn the spotlight on Florentine athletes and medieval sport.
Martine Rose is embracing Florence with brio, taking her unique blend of street, sport and tailoring to the city’s streets and drawing inspiration from local, and medieval, tradition for her debut as special guest designer at Pitti Uomo, which opens Tuesday and runs until Friday.
A London native, Rose is known for her colorful and community-focused runway backdrops, which over the years have included her daughter’s primary school; the Seven Sisters food market in Tottenham, and the roof of a corporate office block in the City of London.
That curiosity about local culture, everyday life and where it all intersects with fashion led Rose to take a closer look at Florence’s different neighborhoods, local heroes and traditions.
A sports fan, she was immediately drawn to “calcio storico,” a medieval mix of soccer and rugby, a brutal game that’s often played on cobblestones. Florentine men still play it, often shirtless, with teams from the city’s four quarters competing.
“I didn’t want to use Florence as a postcard. I really wanted to bring it into the show and pay respect to Italian and Florentine culture,” Rose said in an interview from her north London studio.
“I knew that I wanted to engage the city in a real way. Florence is so beautiful, but it’s also a working, living, breathing city with all different types of people who keep it alive. I was interested in knowing where to find the working class area, the industrial one, the market one. I wanted to understand Florence differently to a tourist,” she said.