For Men's Designers, the Muse Is Only 13
By GUY TREBAY

FLORENCE, Italy — All men, at some level, are 13. Or so one might have concluded from the tone of Pitti Immagine Uomo, the big men's wear trade show held last week in Florence, which was a major center for Italian fashion until Milan stole the spotlight three decades ago.

If in most societies masculine rites of passage are organized around puberty and the onset of the reproductive years, in a materialistic culture, the transition to adulthood is best marked by the stirrings of an independent ability to select and consume. Americans enter a mature demographic cohort at 13, the age by which most marketers say that the buying patterns of a lifetime are formed.