Japan is on the minds of the Pitti Immagine Uomo team.

From the choice of a restaurant for its biannual media luncheon in Manhattan on Thursday to its featured guest designer for June, the Asian country is this year’s star of the show. But it’s not just Pitti that is focused on Japan this year since the World Expo is also being held in Osaka through October.

“We skipped an Italian restaurant for the first time,” said Lapo Cianchi, director of communications and events for the Italian trade show, who added that the group was the first to dine at Teruko, a Japanese restaurant at New York’s Hotel Chelsea, which will open at the end of the month. The choice of the restaurant was also a nod to the fair’s guest designer and guest of honor this time: Homme Plissé Issey Miyake.

“We have been chasing the Issey Miyake brand for some time,” Cianchi said, “and we finally have success.”

He said the company will hold a runway show for its spring 2026 collection on June 18, the trade show’s second day, at Villa Medicea della Petraia, a 14th-century hillside estate overlooking Florence that boasts lush gardens that once belonged to the Medici family. He added that Pitti Immagine had used the villa once before, for the Proenza Schouler show 15 years ago.

In addition, the Japanese company will mount an exhibition during the show of the “fabrics, inspiration and manufacturing process” of its signature pleats, Cianchi said.

“We feel grateful for this opportunity to be featured at one of the most celebrated menswear events around the world,” the Homme Plissé Issey Miyake design team said. “We will present our spring 2026 collection to a local and international audience in Florence, created based on our research and field studies conducted during our visits to many places in Italy.”

Pitti Uomo marks the first stop in the new roving show format the brand unveiled earlier this year. “The brand will travel around the world to present its clothing in places and at events where it has never been before, meeting local communities and connecting with a global creative scene,” the team added.

A favorite among fashion professionals and fashionistas alike, Homme Plissé Issey Miyake was established in 2013 as the menswear counterpart to Pleats Please, the womenswear, pleat-centric brand introduced in 1994. Issey Miyake’s signature pleats first appeared in the Japanese brand’s main collection in 1988 before it jump-started dedicated lines. They are achieved through dedicated machinery that applies the pleats to the flat, final garment, thus reducing textile waste, as well as the need for seams. Pleats in the Homme Plissé and Pleats Please collections differ from one another.

“We have long hoped to associate the name of the great Japanese master with our event,” said Raffaello Napoleone, chief executive officer of Pitti Immagine. “This is our way of recognizing and celebrating the quality, creativity and originality of the brand, its success on a global scale — and, at the same time, highlighting the brand’s current creative direction, which has successfully reinterpreted the quiet, elegant magic of its founder: one of the designers, one of the artists, who marked the history of fashion in the 20th century.”

Homme Plissé Issey Miyake has unveiled its new collections during Paris Men’s Fashion Week since 2019, oftentimes mounting performance shows that have been a favorite among attendees. Last January the brand skipped its Paris show ahead of the roving format announcement. Its spot in Paris’ fashion week calendar was replaced by Issey Miyake’s four-year-old IM Men line, which, as reported, was created in 2021 with the aim to develop clothing that integrates design and engineering.

But Homme Plissé Issey Miyake won’t be the only featured designer at the 108^th edition of the show, the organizers said. As reported, Post Archive Faction, an avant-garde men’s sportswear and experimental outerwear brand founded by Korean designers Dongjoon Lim and Sookyo Jeong, will also show its spring line at the show. Although details of their plans are still under wraps, Cianchi said they will be collaborating with an artist for their show.

The third guest designer will be Niccolò Pasqualetti, a Tuscany-based finalist for the LVMH Prize for Young Designers in 2024 who trained at The Row and Loewe before launching his own brand three years ago.

“Much like Jean Arp, who inspired his jewelry design, Niccolò Pasqualetti invents new forms of reality through his garments, experimenting with diverse materials,” said Francesca Tacconi, special events coordinator at Pitti. “Starting from the sartorial codes of traditional Italian menswear, which he boldly reinterprets, Niccolò creates collections where past and present, masculine and feminine, classic and contemporary coexist in a uniquely organic and original way.”

The addition of Post Archive Faction marks the importance of the South Korean market in menswear. As Cianchi said at the time of the announcement: “For several seasons now at Pitti, we’ve been paying particular attention to the culture and aesthetic of South Korea. It’s a growing market, highly significant for Italian fashion and for the fair — considering the strong turnout of journalists and business professionals at Pitti Uomo — but also a fertile ground for scouting the new generation of fashion designers and young creatives who stand out for their versatility and ability to connect different artistic languages and their disciplines.”

So it’s no surprise that Korea will be the guest nation this year and its Code Korea section will bring a number of brands to the fair including Ajobyajo, Ordinary People, Valoren and others.

The Scandinavians will be returning as well. The Scandinavian Manifesto section will bring a number of brands to the show including NN07, Messy Weekend, Woodbird and Brixtol. China will also be represented as will the Promos French Menswear Federation and the Spanish Institute for Foreign Trade.

The overall theme of this year’s show, Napoleone said, is “Pitti Bikes,” which is intended to represent the new, more-casual way of dressing for men.

In spite of the global uncertainty, Napoleone said more than 700 exhibitors have already committed to be part of the show, 43 percent of which are international. Thirty brands are American. The organizers are expecting some 200 U.S. buyers, they said. Last January, 248 American buyers representing 130 stores attended while in June that number was 217.

The show will be held June 17 to 20 at the Fortezza da Basso in Florence.