Mid-Seventies. Harold and Maude, the movie directed by Hal Ashby and selected by the National Film Preservation Board, this year turns 50. Ashby directed other memorable movies, like Coming Home and Being There, but the success he achieved in his golden period was barely useful: Ashby became addicted to drugs and died for cancer refusing any kind of traditional medical care. An announced suicide, like the one committed by Maude, the main female character of a movie (with a stunning soundtrack by Cat Stevens) almost forgotten, but that reached the sensibility of the new generations in the 70s. The costumes, very accurate, anticipated a style adopted in the mid-Seventies that persists, sometimes in a very precise way and sometimes reinterpreted, in today’s fashion.

The perfect double-breasted with a trick. … Continua a leggere →

Men’s fashion changes direction. Fall/winter collections are sold since the first days of July, but I feel like ruling out that italian men have already cleaned out the stores, thinking about a new wardrobe. Why did I write a “new” wardrobe? It’s simple, because fashion – also men’s – has changed direction; the proof comes from last fashion shows in June that reaffirmed a drastic transformation (but it’s a matter of summer 2014, it’s too early to talk about). By now, anyway, the turning point is clear. The general trend exclude the sportswear in favour of a style with no midtones: very elegant or very fashionable. Or both together. To sum up: – Among classic shades, grey, blue and camelhair last but, in compensation, winter lights up with colours like yellow, red and light blue. – The fur is back, as a coat or as an embellishment on lapels of long coats: the three quarters jacket has, infact, almost vanished; it’s time of the calf-lenght coat or the waist-lenght jacket, there’s hardly anything in the middle. – Patterns on fabric (heavy wool and flanel mainly) goes from macro-tartan to glenchecks and houndstooth, and the double-breasted suit is in again. Michael Caine in 1966, wearing a double-breasted suit, one of the winter trends.

Search on Google for Paul Newman and Marlon Brando’s images. Then search for Ray Petri, the man who realised tens of remarkable editorials for I-D and The Face in the 80s and invented the stylist profession. “Ray, who thought it was hard to look good wearing anything but jeans, Ray who replaced Marlon Brando’s rebel leather jacket with the black synthetic one worn by the pilots of the Us Air Force” (from Repubblica, 2007). Newman and Brando loved to wear denim with white socks as much as Petri did. Although fashion it’s change and transformation by definition. Fashion is surprising. At times fashion can be excess, extravaganza, so while organizing a fashion shoot sometimes it is worth taking risks and then deal with consequences! Just like a designer working on its fashion show also a stylist working for fashion magazines can cause outrage: try to “suggest” wearing white socks under an haute couture suit and insults will rain down although the objective beauty of Gianluca Fontana’s picture is indisputable. If you despise the idea of socks that are not blue or grey, especially in combination with such a suit, you are not entirely wrong. But you’re not entirely right either. Picture by Gianluca Fontana for Style magazine. Suit by Kiton, loafers by Bally.