NY May 15, 2003 - Get ready for a humanistic, and clinically safer, Pitti.
The highpoint of the world's greatest men's trade show this June will be a Hussein Chalayan men's fashion show staged on the frontier between the Greek and Turkish halves of Cyprus, beamed by satellite into Florence.
"Hussein is an Anglo-Cypriot designer so he understands and feels strongly about this. We are a little concerned about using satellite, as it's not the simplest technology. But it will be a fantastic presentation," Pitti's CEO Raffaello Napoleone told FWD at a luncheon of fashion buyers and media Thursday in New York.
The Chalayan show will be viewed on June 19 in the 150-year-old Stazione Leopolda, a train station that has played host to landmark shows and installations by bold face designers such as Giorgio Armani, Valentino and Hedi Slimane.
Chalayan, a brilliant conceptual designer and two-time British Designer of the Year winner, was born in Nicosia, Cyprus in 1970. After many years of factional fighting and invasion by the Turkish army, the island was forcibly divided in July 1974 into a northern Turk third and southern Greek region. A buffer zone between the two communities remains mined and patrolled by UN peacekeepers, though this was recently reopened following renewed political talks between the two communities.
Staged in the Fortezza da Basso in Florence from June 19-22, and featuring some 747 brands, Pitti will open its 64th edition June 18
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Perhaps mindful of recent newspaper photos of Japanese tourists wearing masks while shopping in Italy, Pitti executives were very keen to stress that they had taken extraordinary precautions against SARS. According to CNN, nine probable cases have been reported in Italy, but no deaths.
"We are taking the strictest measures possible. We will only use disposable plates and cutlery. We will make available masks to everyone in any color you want, white, red, black, gray. You can choose."
from: FWD
and it's well laid out 
ahhh and who wouldn't be happy to spend any amount of time in Florence for any reason!!
