Men's wear goes 'wild' at Pitti Uomo

With tropical prints and flowers

(ANSA) - Florence, June 18 - Men's wear spring-summer 2015 collections walk on the wild side of fashion at the 86th edition of Florence's Pitti Uomo trade fair wrapping up Friday. If formal clothing has rediscovered the undying allure of men's staples with a twist, from waistcoats to the slim-fitting blue blazers famously donned by Italy's 39-year-old Florentine Premier Matteo Renzi, casual clothes will be all about tropical prints, flowers and colonial styles when temperatures start soaring next year. Angelo Nardelli 1951 vied for a 1970s look with a collection dominated by flower patterns on both jackets and pants. Paolo Pecora Milano also dived into the botanical look with tiny flowers on its 1950s-inspired ties and embossed on suits, jackets and pants.

Marches tailor Lardini embraced next summer's soaring horticultural fecundity with beautiful blooms on its most elegant waistcoats. From blooming Western gardens to Caribbean sunsets, fashion savvy men next year will also be parading shirts, T-shirts and shorts with a tropical inspiration. Palms, lush undergrowth, hibiscus flowers and glimpses of beaches and waterfalls are all over collections - from jackets to jeans. Colmar Originals went for flowers and hibiscus to decorate the lining of its jackets while Italian shirt-makers Webb & Scott vied for the Hawaii spirit along with hip artisan shoemakers Raparo.

PT 01 - Pantaloni Torino launched a new line of chinos, the Fiji, paying homage to the exotic islands with a color palette of beiges and browns to give its pants a lived-in, discolored look. A cult brand of the 1980s, Mauna Kea, and Florence's iconic jeans manufacturers Roy Roger's went for beach couture hailing West Coast surf culture and East Coast glamour with flowers and printed beach photos. And the exotic hype is stretching from head to toe at Pitti Uomo.

Men next summer will be able to step under the sun with a flower-printed Stetson hat on their head and their feed clad in Gallo's Reef socks, hailing coral barriers, inside tropically inspired sneakers. Indeed the sneakers elevated to fashion must by top designers and trend setters like Marc Jacobs and Hedi Slimane are one of the highlights of this Pitti Uomo edition. Diadora heritage is nodding to the 1990s and this year's World Cup while D'Acquasparta pays homage to tennis and Wimbledon with vintage-looking sneakers.

Pantofola D'Oro is celebrating next year's rugby world cup and Italy's iconic Superga tennis shoes are bowing to a range of moods embracing Arabic-style patterns and the ever-popular skulls. And when the sun sets, if the summer breeze starts blowing and temperatures drop by a few degrees, De Praio has designed scarves for the boys with the omnipresent flower patterns and tropical prints. Elegance also has an exotic touch at Brunello Cucinelli.

The luxury brand's spring-summer collection was inspired by three leading European capitals - Paris, London and Amsterdam - yet in a color palette echoing the shades of Asia and Africa. The youthful polish of Cucinelli's slim-fitting suits was enhanced by colonial and exotic nuances of beiges and blues with touches of saffron, curry and orange inspired by spices. And if menswear labels are eyeing faraway countries for inspiration, data released on the eve of Pitti Uomo by the federation of Italian fashion businesses Sistema Moda Italia, showed foreign markets are also very good for business.

Exports in 2013 registered 4.3% growth worth 5.3 billion euros for Italian menswear labels - helping the sector's revenues as domestic sales shrank 9.3% while Italy was struggling out of its longest and deepest postwar recession. Overall, Italian menswear was worth 8.5 billion euros in 2013. While growth across EU markets remained stable - up 1.4% - the 1,090 companies presenting their spring-summer collections at Florence's Forezza da Basso will be vying in particular for markets outside Europe which registered a 7.4% hike last year, led by South Korea with a 35% increase, China with 29.5% and Hong Kong with 18%.

Traditional markets also grew, notably the US up 2%, Russia up 1.2% and Japan, which registered a 0.7% increase. According to data released by Italian statistics bureau Istat, exports will keep growing this year with a 4.7% increase already recorded in the first two months of 2014 on the same period last year.