Classic, always. A summer, many years ago, my mother – who was close to her eighties – was invited for dinner by a couple. One of them showed up at the restaurant with combat boots, ripped jeans and tank top; as I recall he wore around his wrist a nice series of studded black leather bracelets. The day after my mother, who was very open minded but there’s a line, with her quiet tone of voice told me that she had found a little inappropriate inviting an elderly lady and showing up dressed like Tom of Finland (this is mine, it goes without saying that mum didn’t know the character by Touko Laaksonen). She stuck to the most classic of the classics: “In the end, what does it take? I didn’t expect the jacket: a nice white shirt with dark trousers and you never go wrong”. Maybe even mum knew that in addition to not making you look bad ever, a simple white shirt with a barely starched collar can be even sexy.

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.

Gentlemen, let’s mix. I think I’ve already talked about it, but these days I like to revisit it. The styling you find in men’s fashion magazines usually gives ideas for basic or classic outfits: hardly ever – especially the italian magazines – they suggest a mix of fabrics, colors and shapes that abroad (not everywhere, to be clear), instead, where different ethnicities and customs cohexist in harmony, are a rule. So that when we fly to London or New York, Paris or New Orleans, we think: “Look at that, how certain clothes suits them well”. Influences from non-western countries have such charme and personality that – if properly matched – can revive even the most normal suit. Try that. Despite every conformism.

The vintage creeps us out. The enthusiasts of this genre are anxious about the beginning of the new season of Bates Motel, the prequel of Psycho, the very famous movie by Alfred Hitchcock. Transmitted by Netflix, the Tv series has been created by Carlton Cuse and Kerry Ehrin that claim to have been inspired also by David Lynch; and, actually, we can find some references to Twin Peaks. Bates Motel doesn’t take place in the 50s, even if it talks about the relationship between mother and son before the murder: the screenplay set the story today. But, detail that adds mistery and charm, the two protagonists , Vera Farmiga (Norma Louise Bates) and Freddie Highmore (Norman Bates), are dressed in 50s’ style. As two ghosts thrown into the present, dis-united in an obsessive relationship that will lead to tragedy. In the new season, Marion Crane (the girl of the memorable scene of the shower, played by Janet Leigh in Psycho), will be played by Rihanna: let’s see if she will wear vintage clothes too.

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.