Italian brands concentrated on getting back to work this season, with lots of smart new workwear, beautiful statements by legacy marques and some novel off-bike ideas. 
 
As Pitti celebrated its 107th edition, FashionNetwork.com checked out Piacenza 1733, Colnago, TRC and Luis Figo.
 

Piacenza 1733

One of the great undiscovered brands of Italy is cashmere specialist Piacenza 1733, a slumbering giant which is waking up with considerable flair.

 
Piacenza 1733 is one of the lost venerable luxury brands in the world. Its founding family still owns the company, and Vasiliy Piacenza a gentlemanly member of its 14th generation guided editors and buyers around its stand in Pitti.
 
Based around Biella, like famed marques such as Zegna or Loro Piana, Piacenza 1733 concentrates on truly exceptional quality. This decade, the family concern has continued to expand, acquiring Lanificio Piemontese and Lanificio Cerruti, whose scion was Nino Cerruti, was one of the best half-dozen menswear designers of the past half century.

The Piacenza clan produce such top-notch quality fabrics they supply the likes of Chanel and Hermès. Now they are focusing more on their own label Piacenza 1733, and the results are impressive.
 
“We like to call it smart luxury and not quiet luxury,” smiled Vasiliy, who shows off some marvelously cool ikat-inspired mohair cashmere sweaters, their furry finish created by hand with real thistles. The plant that forms the emblem to the brand logo.
 
Blends of Alashan cashmere, vicuna and alpaca combined in super light Aran Islands sweaters with three-dimensional dots with pointelle motifs and geometric rhomboids. While their tailoring impressed with a series of graphic Argyle or Fair Isle patterns used in soft gentlemanly boho coats. All using an unexpected palette of beige, palest gray, sea blues and Connemara marble green.
 
“We are a vertically integrated company, from making the threads to creating our own ready-to-wear,” underlines Vasiliy.
 
Next step, opening a boutique in central Milan, further raising the profile of Piacenza 1733, the most venerable of marques that now seems very with it.
 

Colnago

Off-bike attitude is all the rage at Pitti, especially at Colnago, an iconic Italian brand, which unveiled its first fashion capsule collection.
 

Renowned for its top-tier racing bicycles, chosen by the world’s greatest cyclist Tadej Pogacar, three-time winner of the Tour de France.
 
Though, tellingly, Colnago’s off-bike collection avoids technical performance fabrics, and concentrates on casual ease. From classy and light cashmere polo shirts and neat cotton aertexes, to sweatshirts and a great padded safari jacket with high collar. The last manufactured by Loro Piana. All made in black or midnight blue; all finished with subtle gold stripe; all completed with an all-black shamrock logo. 
 
No wonder Colnago titles itself as a legacy Italian brand “with the soul of champions.”
 
A savvy offering from Colnago, which recently celebrated its 70th anniversary by launching this leisurewear capsule collection. Presented on a stand featuring the Steelnovo – a stunning steel bicycle. With perfect striped-back Italian lines, and high-tech breaks, a limited-edition bike priced at €17,500.
 

TRC

Got to hand it to TRC, their clothes have the most remarkable hand. 

TRC is a 50/50 joint venture between two family-owned north Italian companies, the 80-year-old Candiani famed for its advanced denim, and Grassi, an over 100-year-old advanced apparel maker. 
 
TRC’s collections certainly combined the best of both houses most notably its Mineral Denim line.
 
Made in the darkest of palettes – deep blues, black and shimmering anthracite – and cut generously, this was the best take at Pitti on workwear – a huge and growing trend in menswear. Where basalt, used in soil regeneration, sulfur and graphite, to create remarkable surface finishes, combine to make some very different modern fashion.
 

Luis Figo

Imitation is not the highest form of flattery at Luis Figo.
 
The famed Portuguese footballer presented his latest fashion collection in Pitti, and it was a blatant copy of Brunello Cucinelli. Luis Figo is not the only brand to have pinched Brunello’s aesthetic of soft tones, classy tailoring and breezy attitude – Eleventy and Seinse have copied a few as well.

But Figo takes the prize as the most blatant. Evident from the suit he is wearing – a pale gray chalk stripe double breasted suit that was classic Cucinelli. Until that is, one gave it a Seventh Avenue Handshake, meaning one felt the lapel between thumb and finger and the quality was two-levels below Brunello.
 
In case you doubt this, when one asked Figo why he had created a fashion brand, he replied: “Well, I am a businessman who wants to make some money. So, I wanted something like Brunello Cucinelli at an approachable price point. I am not a designer, but I know what I like.” There you go.
 
Moreover, his partner Gandolfo Albanese even worked for Cucinelli before setting up the Luis Figo brand.
 
As a player, Luis was exceptional – winning the Ballon d’Or, football’s greatest individual prize, in 2020. And wowing, with his intense style of play, dynamic dribbling and elegant touch.
 
However, he is also notorious for leaving Barcelona for bitter rivals Real Madrid in the same year. Creating so much animosity in the next Classico between the two teams, that 98,000 fans hurled insults at him inside Barcelona’s Camp Nou stadium, amid banners labelling him a “Traitor,” “Judas” and “Mercenary.”
 
Luckily for Luis that did not happen at Pitti his season.