Who is Antonio De Matteis, the new CFMI president

The Centro di Firenze per la Moda Italiana has a new top management, here is all its history

The Centro di Firenze per la Moda Italiana CFMI (which controls Pitti Immagine) renews its top management and chooses Antonio De Matteis as its new president, succeeding Claudio Marenzi. While Antonella Mansi has been reconfirmed as vice-president.

ANTONIO DE MATTEIS

Antonio De Matteis, known as Totò, is the Kiton Group's managing director and also holds the role of creative director of menswear. He was born in Naples in 1964. In 1986 he began his career at Kiton under the aegis of his uncle Ciro Paone - the founder and president of Kiton, a men's tailoring maison (which a few years ago was also joined by women's wear) founded in 1968 in Naples.

1996 marked the entry of Antonio De Matteis into Ciro Paone spa, the holding company of the Ciro Paone Group, with the acquisition of a 10 per cent stake. 2007 was the year of definitive consecration: Ciro Paone chose him to hold the position of managing director of the group, consolidating the centrality of his person in the definition of the brand's strategies.

In 2018 Antonio De Matteis gave impetus to the creation of Knt (Kiton new textures), the first collection signed by his sons, the twins Mariano and Walter De Matteis, the third generation of the Kiton family, and in the last two years the Group has achieved a turnover increase of +60%, reaching 162 million euros.

De Matteis in 2018 was elected Made in Italy Ambassador in Washington and received the NIAF Leonardo Da Vinci award in recognition of his work to spread and safeguard Italian cultural values and traditions overseas.

During the pandemic, he travelled all over Italy from South to North to personally visit retailers to express the Kiton family's closeness, consolidate old friendships and create new synergies.

In 2021, during the customary end-of-year speech in front of the employees of the atelier and headquarters, Antonio announced the family's decision to donate the profits of the 2021 financial year to all Kiton artisans and employees worldwide.

Under the leadership of Antonio De Matteis, Kiton has grown steadily and now has five production sites in Italy, 800 employees and 60 flagship stores around the world (including Milan, New York, London, Las Vegas, Seoul and Beijing) and a prestigious showroom in Milan in the historic Art Nouveau building in Via Pontaccio 21, known as Palazzo Kiton.