FLORENCE, Italy — When the English designer Adam Brown set out to start a line of tailored swimsuits seven years ago, one favoring computer generated imagery, a sophisticated palette and the kind of snug fit he had seen on men like himself while vacationing in Miami, friends greeted the idea with what he called “howls of laughter.”

“They said, your shorts are so short!” said Mr. Brown, whose label is called Orlebar Brown. “I was told, the only ones who have the good bodies and will want a fitted product like that are gay guys.”

Mr. Brown is a gay guy. Fortunately for him, he had the foresight to envision the immediate future of men’s wear, where a great many stereotyped distinctions between gay and straight were upended as the flamboyant, fashion-savvy gay man and the straight style-illiterate became virtually interchangeable.

Nowhere is this more apparent than at Pitti Uomo, the twice-yearly men’s wear trade show that attracted nearly 1,200 exhibitors and 30,000 visitors to Florence this week, most from North America and Asia — with the Russians and Ukrainians, once a powerful presence here, largely sitting it out.