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.

His name’s Scott. The relationship between Larry Paul Scott as a model and as an artist is like that between Sean Connery and James Bond: like Connery has never succeeded in getting free from Bond, so Larry can’t purge him from the image of his face on the first campaign of Acqua di Giò. Then you search for him on Google and you find out that last June in Spain, in Girona, he has carried out his first photography exhibition. Scott’s photography is only in black and white, he has portrayed real people, focusing on the glamour and the trash of the nightlife of New York City, but I prefer his triptychs composed by nature, human beings and architectures, that emphasize perfection, beauty and nature. On Instagram, that by now is the most important agency for photographers in the world, you can find him as @larrypaulscott. Maybe we’ll see him again posing for fashion magazines, but as a talent, no more as a top model or, as he prefers to be defined, as an “ex top model”. Because today Larry is a great artist that deserves to be followed carefully.

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.

The Good Taste. There are rules to be respected, and mainly some basic behaviours to be considered in order to be defined as “good taste person”.  The Galateo of Monsignor Della Casa has been written almost five centuries ago, and there is no need to review the key points, because the rules of good taste have been handed down from one generation to another. Today there’s a kind of intellectual creativity – only for very few people- that makes the flaws and the “intentional oversights” an added value. But this is valid only for clothing. We can’t excape from kindness, elegance of speaking and good manners. Standing up to shake the hand of a woman even if she’s young, don’t kiss on the hand if outside, taking off the sunglasses while talking with anyone. Well, we can forgive a smiling and kind person if he/she is not properly dressed, but if the attire is elegant, much better. And of you are worried of making mistakes, don’t add details and details trying to look like a dandy from old times. Simple is better.