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So it was on February 12,1951, in his home of Villa Torrigiani, that Giovanni Battista Giorgini held Italy’s first fashion show featuring 180 collections, several female buyers from elite North American department stores including Jessica Davis of Bergdorff Goodman, Gertrude Ziminsky of New York’s B. Altman and Stella Haniania of San Francisco’s I.Magnin, and a few international journalists.

Giorgini had used his connections and charm to convince these high profile buyers to attend his first show in Florence as they were already in Europe for the Paris collections. In the 1950′s, a journey from America to Europe was a long boat trip followed by a long train ride so Giorgini who was used to hosting international buyers in his home, invited his guests for elegant supper at his home and held grand evening balls to entertain his clients as much as to showcase the fine Italian fashion.

Despite the small number of designers and buyers, the event proved to be a great success. All the collections shown that evening were sold, the buyers contacted their stores to send more funds and the ateliers were inundated with orders.

The event gained extensive media coverage in international fashion magazines such as Fashion trade publication, Women’s Wear Daily’s follow-up headline: “Italian styles gain approval of US Buyers.”

Giorgini’s initiative had proven successful in introducing sophisticated Italian fashion, quality fabrics, skilled technical tailoring and many view this event as the official birth of Italian fashion.

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In July 1952 in the beautiful Sala Bianca of Palazzo Pitti, Giorgini’s fourth fashion show was a pivotal event for his enterprise with nine fashion houses participating, along with sixteen houses showcasing boutique styles and sportswear, Florence became the place where all the major Italian fashion shows were held up until 1982 in the Sala Bianca in Palazzo Pitti.

In 1954 Giorgini and his collaborators realised it was necessary to organise this growing wave of fashion business and together they founded the Centro di Firenze per la Moda Italiana (CFMI) designed to promote the fashion events. From then on, this organisation would promote all the fashion events. There were 500 buyers and 200 journalists at the 1955 shows, making “Pitti” the biggest fashion trade fair in Europe.

Now sixty years on the CFMI and Pitti Immagine, are still going strong and the Palazzo Pitti Fashion shows have grown to include Pitti Uomo in 1972 at the Hotel Villa Medici, Pitti Donna in ’75 at Palazzo Strozzi, Pitti Bimbo in ’75, Pitti Filati in ’77, Pitti Casual in ’78 and Pitti Maglia in ’82 devoted to Italian knitwear.

Italian fashion has influenced the world’s designers and fashion admirers, setting a standard of excellence in style and production that has withstood the threat of fast fashion, cheap counterfeiting, economic pressures and more.

With such a wealth of natural talent and innate style Italian designers such as Versace, Ferragamo, Gucci, Emilio Pucci, Cavalli etc. have deservedly become the stars of the fashion world and it’s difficult to talk about fashion without mentioning their influence so let’s also tip our hat to Count Giovanni Battista Giorgini, the great man who had the vision and charisma to create the international platform for Italian Fashion to stand proudly on.

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