I arrive in Firenze, the fashion event where I’m supposed to be, Pitti uomo 2020, is tactically close the train station, having me not seeing much of the city. It’s colder than anyone from Holland has ever experienced Italy. As I approach the entrance trying to hold in my runny nose, I can see my competing photographers trying to catch a photo of some better dressed people around me. Before I come inside, I receive a little paper on a lanyard saying my name and company I work for. Making me able to enter backstage areas of Pitti Uomo in order to take photos, I feel important.
As I scan the bar-code on my ticket to enter through gates similar to the ones at a train station I see three photographers chase a very young girl through a medium crowded plaza. Probably she’s famous and wearing something radically exclusive and expensive. I’m thinking about the fact that bar-code scanners actually scan the white parts of the bar-code instead of the black, I never knew.
As everyone tries to stand out of the crowd wearing the most stylish, modern, classiest, colourful clothing, no one really does. I ask myself who is here for who, is the fashion here for the models? Are the photographers here for the fashion? Are the models here for the photographers? Who is the junkie and what is the drugs? Everyone is constantly posing just in case someone would suddenly take a picture. Some provocatively light a cigarette in with the hope of being just a little cooler than the other one. Some light a cigarette because they are hungry and food is nowhere in sight, or they need to be skinny for their model life.
I hear cheering and applause, something apparently is so important that everyone is filming it with their phone. No one is here for the event, it’s an event to make your Instagram look real. This designer jacket doesn’t only exist on Kylie Jenners profile. Here it is in your camera app.
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