Florence is accustomed to invaders. The French, the Spanish, the Austrians, the British on the Grand Tour and the international tourist hordes in their cargo shorts and Crocs have flowed over this city in waves and yet somehow left its character and soul largely untouched.

So it is perhaps unsurprising that when an influx of nearly 30,000 visitors arrives each June for Pitti Uomo, the world’s largest men's wear trade fair, locals react with a collective shrug.

Those buyers and sellers from 50 countries are in town to trawl the stalls of the more than 1,200 exhibitors in the historic Fortezza da Basso for the hottest, finest and latest in men’s wear. The savviest among them also know to look for finds outside the exhibition halls. That’s because in Florence, unusual in an age of point-and-click shopping, the pleasures of brick-and-mortar are alive and well.

Ask Cristiano Magni, a public relations executive in New York who represents popular Pitti Uomo labels like Pantaloni Torino and L.B.M. 1911 . On arriving in Florence, Mr. Magni said, he drops his bag at a hotel and sprints to a tiny unnamed shop operated by Domenico Di Mascolo and Paola Pruscini, master barbers who practice their craft in a two-chair shop at the heart of the city. Tidied up and refreshed by a traditional hot-towel shave, he makes his way to Giusto Bespoke, a shop where Luca Giusto makes fine custom shirts in a style the tailor characterizes as a fusion of jaunty Neapolitan taste with the more conservative one of the Florentines.