Pitti: McQueen’s Florentine Moment

Though he personally was nowhere near Pitti, the giant men's wear and accessories trade show that opened in Florence, Italy this week, the trade fair is turning out to be a very good one for Alexander McQueen, whose latest selection of sneakers for Puma and debut luggage line for Samsonite attracted a huge throng of media and buyers.

Puma officials at one stage closed the McQueen section for Italian TV but most of the day it was packed with the curious and the commercially minded checking out the designer's latest footwear.

For next season, McQueen themed the footwear around his human cat concept, the part black panther part super athlete figure used in advertising, whose profile appeared etched onto sneakers or printed inside trainers.

McQueen tweaked his Puma ideas for the autumn/winter 2007 season, going for a more active sport feel. For guys, this meant low-slung black leather trainers with white trim bearing the aforementioned human cat logo or ankle hugging, white basketball shoes featuring the metallic panther tag on the metal chain. For women, there were winkle-picker sneakers in a faux herringbone print, or cowgirl western boots with ergonomic soles. But, overall, the collection felt less conceptual than Lee's previous efforts for Puma, and none the worse for that.

"Our goal with Lee is to be in partnership with the right retailers. One cannot think of achieving absurdly large figures. We would like to retail in between 200 and 250 of the right places internationally and we are well on the road to doing that," explained Christian Wiesender, sales chief of Puma’s fashion forward division, The Black Station.

Wiesender reported that McQueen's Puma collection had achieved a striking 90% sale through in Selfridges and predicted that the line's high quality finish would boost its appeal to consumers. This collection only employed leather from Italian tanners, avoiding the Asian leathers used in the vast majority of sneakers.

"I think a key thing is that whatever we produce reflects our Puma sports heritage. We can't produce art for posers," Wiesender smiled.

In a separate Pitti pavilion, Samsonite Black Label displayed McQueen's new line for the American luggage brand.

A canny mix of high-tech and gothic futurism, the standout piece was a wheelie-weekend case that mimicked a rib cage, based on a mould from a real man. Ergonomic, thoroughly new and even done in black crocodile, these were statement pieces of luggage reflecting the designer's edgy aesthetic. To underline, one had only to look at the ad, shot by artist Sam Taylor Wood. It showed a white, men's rib case on the beach with Alexander emerging in a white shirt from the waves.

And McQueen didn't just draw a crowd at Pitti. He even organized a video installation created by artist Felice Limosani that was shown in this city's premier multi-brand boutique Luisa Via Roma. Well after midnight, a crowd of several dozen could be seen milling around the store's windows watching the video, entitled with classic McQueen perversity, "Under My Skin."

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