Judging from the crowds of fashionistas hanging in and around the Florence-based Luisa Via Roma store, the fashion system is alive and kicking. Yet a neon light installation in one of the store windows spells out “Gianfranco Ferré Is Not Dead, Fashion System Is”. This is the latest installation – or rather provocation – launched during Pitti Uomo by creative director and ambient designer Felice Limosani for Luisa Via Roma. The concept behind the installation, entitled “Neo”, is based on the values represented by Ferré, a designer better known in Italy as “the architect of fashion” for his essential lines and attention for precise silhouettes and structures and his research into innovative techniques.

Ferré often highlighted in interviews that he wasn't into trends, a statement confirmed by his designs, always characterised by clean and sober lines and made using well researched materials. The blinding white lights in the installation also evoke in some way the iconic white shirt that, borrowed from the male wardrobe, Ferrè radically transformed, dedicating it to all those women looking for a stylish and timeless piece. Ferré's research and passion for everything new is conceived in Limosani's installation as the key to the rebirth of a fashion system that is currently looking for further innovative languages and inspirations to express itself and, that one day soon and also thanks to new means of communication and stimuli, will find a new life like a phoenix rising from the ashes, reborn anew to live again.