In a Florence train station, the Pitti Uomo guest designer brought rule-bending to the heart of menswear tradition.
Hed Mayner likes to play around with traditional fashion. Since founding his eponymous label a decade ago, the 2019 Karl Lagerfeld Prize winner has carved a name for himself with high-volume menswear rewrites. Pitti Uomo is seen as the opposite. The global trade show takes place in Florence twice a year, and holds strong as a beacon for dandyish purists who know the rules and largely stick to them.
Mayner, who normally unveils his Italian-made creations in Paris, was a guest designer at this year’s winter fair and invited to showcase his Autumn/Winter 2026 collection. The event’s theme was motion; an exploration of the constant shifts and progression of the industry. This was displayed not just through clothing, but the location. A colossal side building backing onto Santa Maria Novella station was closed off by security guards for the occasion. It was a literal interpretation of the movement so central to the occasion. But with the clothes, Mayner shifted the focus from locomotives to the body.
An opening look saw a houndstooth riding coat with cropped sleeves and an asymmetrical storm flap, with miniaturised capelets following. Double-breasted overcoats, like those so favoured by regular Pitti attendees, were cut with roomy barrelled arms. A deep brown single-breasted option was fastened at the waist with a belt bag-cumberbund hybrid. Tailoring was boxy and nipped and tucked. While shirts featured high collars without neck openings, as if worn backwards. None of it was unfamiliar – button-ups and top coats are menswear bread and butter – just contorted and softened.
“It’s about creating an imaginary body language and at the same time keeping pieces recognisable,” Mayner shared in a press preview ahead of the show. The aim is to create a parallel reality, and a new way of looking at garments. When you wear them, you look different, he said.
But the difference wasn’t always left field. Sometimes it was as simple as a silver top peaking from a military-inspired bomber jacket. The look was presented in a heartland of traditional men’s fashion, but could have been seen on a Hackney club kid, half-concealing their 4 AM sparkle on the night bus. These were clothes that worked not just on the move, but could progress through their wearers’ lives, from trains to offices, from work to play, from day to night, with military-rooted clothing softened and incorporated into daily wear.
Why rock the boat with all of this on the hallowed men’s fashion grounds of Pitti? “It’s about giving [traditional clothes] a certain attitude and a body language,” Mayner told Man About Town. That is a lingo that knows how to play by the rules. But breaks them anyway.
