Feeling the Heat at Fashion Week
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At the European men’s shows in the midst of a temperature spike, you adapt or you die.
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Attendees getting roasted by the sun at Pitti Uomo. (Photo: Getty Images)
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Menswear has focused much of its expertise over the last few decades on keeping us looking good when the thermometer rises. At Florence’s Pitti Uomo trade show, all manner of modern clothing for spring/summer ‘27 was on display, from jeans to swimwear to vintage-inspired duds. But tailoring—and the stuff that goes with it—still looms over the place as an ideal of male style in a country where la bella figura (otherwise known as the civic duty of looking put together) still counts for something. And amongst Pitti’s many storied exhibitors—like Brunello Cucinelli, Kiton, Stefano Ricci, and Caruso—the foundation remains the suit jacket. Even in a heatwave. The show spills out into the streets too, a tide of surprisingly overdressed men, young and old, wafting about in three-piece linen suits from breakfast to after dinner, trying very hard to look—and be—cool.
In such weather, the Florentines, who are well practiced at this, know to stay in the shadows, leaving the blistering flagstones to the turisti. The locals get about largely by hugging the walls, snaking their way along the two-foot-wide strip of shade cast by the Renaissance eaves high overhead. If they step into the sunlight at all, it’s only to cross a street or dash for the next pool of shadow. It’s not for nothing that the best air conditioning in Florence is in the designer stores on the Via de Tornabuoni, where visitors abound.
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The peacocks of Pitti could probably use a little extra ventilation. (Photo: Getty Images)
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The menswear season has started here for decades, in January and June, with collections conceived for a year hence, so you can get a good early handle on the directions emerging from some of Italy’s better manufacturers even before the runway shows of Milan and Paris kick off. As you may know, we at Esquire think trends are for losers because style, as someone once said, is eternal. But directions, the bigger shifts and eddies in the way we think about clothes, can be fascinating—particularly when rules have relaxed enough to mean you can wear pretty much what you like.
There are exceptions. Everyone has to dress up for Brunello Cucinelli’s seasonal Florentine dinner party, which this time around sprawled across the lawns of the Great Cloister of the Basilica di Santa Maria Novella (built in 1360). The guests of honor—actors Joshua Jackson and Paul Anthony Kelly, and Brunello, the host, all in BC naturalmente—looked cool and collected in the night air.
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Paul Anthony Kelly looking cool as ever despite the Florentine heat. (Photo: Lorenzo Sodi)
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As I write this, Florence and Milan are done with, and Paris is just beginning. The “canicule” (French for something between “heatwave” and “dog days”) has settled like a pall over the city and shows no inclination to shift. So far, so sweaty. On the plus side, it’s a great way to illustrate that how you choose to dress (and what your clothes are made of) is critical in feeling comfortable in the heat. It’s an age-old challenge.
Years of unscientific research of my own have taught me that finer, smoother, lighter cloths touted by brands as more luxurious are not always your friend in the heat. They’re certainly better than the stifling wools or heavy linens that were once the only option for tailored mankind. But close to the body, fine silks and cottons quickly stick to sweaty skin, show through, and leave you feeling swampy. Weirdly, thicker cloths—weaves with texture—seem to work better for me, because texture means that not all the cloth will stick to you, creating air gaps. And thicker textiles can also absorb sweat without showing through. I may be talking out of my hat, I accept, but I’m encouraged by the fact that the same principle informs one of menswear’s oldest and cleverest textile innovations, seersucker. Named from the Persian phrase shir o shakar, which translates roughly as milk and sugar, seersucker dates as far back as early 18th century Persia and came by way of India to the U.S.A. Using different tensions in the vertical thread during weaving creates alternate lines of smooth (milk) and wavy (sugar) cloth, so half the fabric stands away from the skin, allowing air to circulate between you and your clothes. Circulation is everything.
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Thanks, little fan, for making things just a bit more comfortable. (Photo: Nick Sullivan)
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Modern technology helps, too. When you’re on the go all day, the only solution is the portable electric fan, this season’s hot (make that cool) accessory. The “Enjoy Relax Ice Fan” (made in China and just 13 Euros from MediaWorld megastores, dotted around Milan) has three settings. It is unlikely to survive the week. But it’s better than nothing during a runway show, where, if you’re particularly unlucky (or have offended the gods), you’ll have a seat for half an hour in direct sunlight.
Speaking of shows: Milan’s final one was Giorgio Armani. Fittingly, it was a study in unruffled ease despite being set in a courtyard that was—of course—boiling. But the models at least looked cool in the flowing, lightweight tailoring pioneered by Armani decades ago. Less than a year since the passing of the maestro himself, his eponymous label is on fire here in Milan and in Hollywood, its spiritual second home. But it’s not because of the weather. It’s thanks to Leo dell’Orco, Giorgio’s right-hand man for five decades and now men’s creative director, whose output is a reminder that the house has always offered a comfortable vision of luxury, whatever the temperature.
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Armani’s summer-ready luxury. (Photo: Courtesy of Giorgio Armani)
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For those of us who have to pound the streets, running from showroom to showroom or runway to runway on the hunt for summer 2027’s next big thing, the best we can hope for is a stack of clean T-shirts back in our hotel rooms, and the promise of a monumental thunderstorm to reset the thermometer a bit. As of now, on day one of Paris, it shows no sign of materializing. My last night in Milan, dinner with a friend came with a side-serving of purple lightning over the city, and even, briefly, a sprinkling of rain. Then the temperature went up. Mamma mia.
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Thanks for reading this week’s Big Black Book newsletter. See you soon. Until then, feel free to drop me a note at nicksullivanesquire@hearst.com.
- Nick Sullivan, creative director
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