The tie is back. “Have you changed your job?”. This is how a meeting between me and a communication specialist started. That’s because I was wearing suit and tie. That’s because the tie is considered unfashionable. Well, I wasn’t offended by that. Because actually the tie is a little disappeared from catwalks during the last seasons, but it’s also true that one among the most cutting-edge designers, Virgil Abloh, has revived it for next Louis Vuitton’s fall/winter collection. So what? So habits and trends come and go, they disappear and then come back after years. So, take your ties out of the wardrobe. Signed by Marinella, Hermès, Armani. Or adopt new ones, from the same “traditional” brands or from young international brands.

Fashion notes. A trend stops to be appealing for several reasons, based on the historic moment and on countless variables – among them, the social mutations. It’s true that, sooner or later, the hyperbole overturns and what was neglected comes back again in the must haves top hit. The cover headline of the picture you see below, in this page, “Style&Transgression together”, sums up in three words the main trend of 1996, when the sobriety of the suits’ tailoring and the lack of bright colors invaded our wardrobes, winking to a new classic; the stretch fabrics fitted the body without squeezing its shapes; the colors, pale but not too much, were a trick to play down the total-black. Nostalgia? No, it’s not. Forecasts? Neither. Only fashion notes in retrospective.

Ode to the stylists. Styling is a job that can be learned by experience, in years of practice, on fashion shootings’ sets. The stylist knows how and when to mix fabrics, prints and colors. He/she knows how to adapt clothing fits to body shapes, according to the proportions. The stylist is the professional that, mixing and matching clothes, creates a final result that pleases, amazes, reassures: in other words it plays a fundamental role for fashion media. Stylists can help photographers building their careers, they can contribute to the success of magazines, editorial campaigns and fashion shows (or they can ruin them as well). It’s an important role that shouldn’t be underestimated. Some of them gained great writing skills through the years and they now write remarkable articles not just for slick magazines but also for widely-read newspapers. When flipping through fashion editorial pages one should consider that behind each single shot there are passion, thoughts, good taste and quite a lot of work.

M like Mode. The first issue of M was published twelve years ago, in spring 2006. M was one among many glossy fashion magazines: nice size (big), high-quality paper, great photographers and important brands for pages that showed the season’s trends; it was the last fashion specialized published by Rizzoli. The type and font of the letter M was the same of a very popular RCS magazine: Max, the monthly publication well-known for calendars (Ferilli issue was reprinted and sold more than 500thousands copies). But Max was many other things: De Niro on the cover of the first issue (1985) and the first italian magazine to have Lady Gaga on the cover (december 2009, picture by Ellen Von Unwerth) back when no one would have imagined, thanks to the intuition of Andrea Rossi: the same journalist that today writes “Il graffio” for Style Magazine. M like Mode, M like Max. Many readers conserve M issues still today, that hung in there since the beginning of the great crisis, three years later. And it’s interesting to notice that today many young people, between 25 and 35 years old, show a real interest for paper magazines that are high-impact, glossy, very well-finished. But the best thing is to be a success both in paper and online publications: an example? The supplement you are reading, Io Donna…

Fashion of Art. From 2010 the philosophy of “fashion of Art” started to spread. The most popular brands diversified their communication strategies incorporating other worlds, making them compatible with fashion. One of the first coexistences of art and design is the glass and steel  slide designed by Carsten Holler for Prada Milan headquarter. Among the most recent there are Dolce & Gabbana’s haute-couture (in Naples) and Alta Sartoria Uomo (in Palermo) fashion shows: they chose two art cities, not “fashion” cities, like Milan or Paris. But let’s consider the “tradition of fashion” and fashion in the strict sense and ask ourselves what will remain of this decade 2010/20.  The phenomenon of the millenials will go down in history; the innovation is not the proposal of a harmonious masculine/feminine and feminine/masculine ideal that has already existed from Jim Morrison on, and that was resumed by Hedi Slimane in 2000: the innovation is in the extraordinary ostentation that, translated in numbers, has taken Gucci back to the top of the most sold brands. Hats off to Alessandro Michele. In the end, in memories will remain the multitude of accessories that has supported and supports fashion’s budgets. Little-great pieces of contemporary art, from eyewear to shoes and bags.