Black leather has been relegated for many years in “gone by” trends’ oblivion. In Minimalist period – from ’90 to ’00- there was a great success of those long dark coats that, incidentally, I’ve never liked. It was also the era of DSquared’s total black leather, while Paul Smith used it just for the five-pocket pants but combined them cleverly with fabric clothes, celebrating a not-fetish-related street style. To date, Chiuri and Piccioli (Maison Valentino), created a collection for next fall/winter season based on fusion of (black) leather and wool: leather inserts stiffen both wearability and silhouette but express a new concept of male fashion, that places their show between those forward-looking. Soon on Style magazine will be published a shooting I realized with Giovanni Gastel, in which I remarked the trend and the return of black leather, with a styling that mixes it with clothes made with very classic fabric and revisited traditional patterns. If wearing the polished napa leather waistcoat under a glencheck blazer seems too daring, simply try to wear the perfecto with a pair of pinstriped wool trousers. In this picture a detail of Valentino’s leather and wool coat with – under- a leather jacket by Costume National Homme.

Fashion photography is a “dream”. It means technique but also imagination and splendour; on set fashion becomes a means for building a picture. While, during fashion shows, I watch the collections, I’m already thinking about the fashion shootings I could do; my editorials are always linked to a context, achieved thanks to artistic intuition that I developed in many years of experience: I rarely make or commission “Pure Fashion” shootings, because today I’m so far than I used to be from the trade magazines’ mentality. The readers of the paper and web magazines for which I work, are not fashion-addicted, just like me: the best thing to do is to capture their attention through a storyline, just like a movie. The picture I choose for this week is taken from a shooting by Stefan Giftthaler, one of the most visionary and fascinating photographers of last generation; thanks to Rizzoli, we have at our disposal great photographers, the most beautiful men in the world and – naturally- all the fashion we desire: I couldn’t ask for more, to realize ideas that our designers evoke to me. Picture taken from Style magazine by Stefan Giftthaler. Model Jonathan Frenk, clothes by Corneliani.