The rules of formal wear 2.0 – If it’s true that rules are made to be changed, it’s also true that maintaining the basis is a duty. Does everybody agree? So, to be consistent, we can’t neglect the importance of the suit, intended as jacket and trousers of the same color and made of the same fabric. Said that, matching colors and accessories is all about personal taste. If the suit is eccentric, the best choice is to adopt a clean styling, and vice versa. In other words, if the suit is made of charcoal grey or blue navy wool, you can be more creative with the matchings, opting, for example, for a powder pink shirt. But be careful, because if you’re looking for something more modern, the choice of the suit, even if traditional, requires some expedients: the jacket’s lapels should be regular, not too wide or too narrow, as well as the trousers. So avoid skinny fit and avoid pleats.

Signature Pinstripe. Alfred Hitchcok filmed Suspicion in 1941, almost half a century before the invention of the technologies that today allow to create the glorified special effects. There’s a very famous scene, full of suspense, with Cary Grant bringing a glass of milk up the stairs to his wife – interpreted by Joan Fontaine. I leave in doubt who hasn’t watched the movie: the milk could be poisoned. And that glass, declared the filmmaker to Francois Truffaut in a book-interview, had the role of “illuminating the scene”; to obtain the effect he wanted, he used a very simple but effective trick: the glass contained a light bulb. The other stage lighting and the setting create a very fascinating play of geometries and symmetries: the stairs, the paintings, the column, the stripes and the lapels of Grant’s suit, the skylight’s structure that projects a cage-shaped shadow on the wall. An unmissable classic of one of the most famous and less appreciated by americans (at that time) angloamerican directors.

Upside Down. I fell in love with the artworks of Andrea Collesano 7 years ago: they were exhibited in the Art Gallery of Barbara Paci in Pietrasanta. It was love at first sight because when I was a child I was obsessed by whales and sea bottoms; i used to draw many, many of them… however, I wouldn’t be able to become an Artist! Collesano, instead, is an Artist. He’s still very young, he lives and works in Forte dei Marmi in a house-laboratory with a very wild garden. And with a cat. In spite of his youth, he’s already known internationally. He transfers his imaginary world and its symbolisms in his artworks, made with ink on aged paper. Whales are his passion but he also draws lots of other animals. And palm trees. Palm trees underwater, surrounded by frogs and seahorses, in a surreal, charming and poetic world, with a gentle hand; a world that turns upside down the biological rules of animal and vegetal life. Next step: sculptures. Made of bronze. I went and visit him and I saw them: and I fell in love again.

It reminds me… He was not charming, nor good-looking. But sometimes he was wonderful. Lucio Battisti appeared very rarely even in the golden years of RAI. He barely took part in only one Festival of Sanremo, in 1969 in a duet with Wilson Pickett with Un’avventura. First and last time. Lucio Battisti never made concerts, the only live appearance was in 1972 for Teatro 10, in a duet with Mina. Battisti’s voice could reach high keys, a kind of falsetto, sometimes nearly touching the bad note; but the timbre was deep, heartfelt, enchanting, touching. Among the very few pictures of him, if we don’t include those shot for the albums’ covers (but since 1979 he didn’t want to appear even on them), those by Cesare Monti, shot in his country house during his free time, stand out. In his free singing (canto libero, from one of his song), Battisti wrote the most beautiful pages of italian pop music and transmitted a sense of privacy and nostalgia, a lonely inspiration that infected other great songwriters like De Gregori and Fossati.

Imperial holes. The brogue’s upper was originally drilled for “technical” reasons. Holes helped to keep the shoe dry in case of rain or, vice versa, cool in summer. Today there are completely different devices: leather is processed in order to become actually waterproof. However, that early device is now a distinctive and ornamental sign. The brogue, born three centuries ago, lost quickly its original purpose, utilitarian and sporty, becoming an iconic accessory. Legend has it that Edward VII – King of Great Britain, Ireland and Emperor of India (for only one year, in 1936) – was the first one, as a prince, to sanction the swallowtail lace up shoes, wearing them during a formal event. Custom-made brogues by Paul Smith Personal Service.