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.

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.

Man in black. In the book Zeitgeist (published by Bandecchi & Vivaldi) that collects some pieces by Giuseppe Veneziano presented in 2010 during the exhibition with the same name, there’s a chapter dedicated to Villains. Veneziano, born in 1971 and recognised by critics and specialised magazines as one of the spokespeople of italian New Pop and of the group “Italian Newbrow”, like every artist worth of respect is fascinated by the dark side. “All the evil represents a potential vitality needy of transformation”, wrote the psychoanalyst Sheldon Kopp. And the sicilian artist depicts archetypes of comic-books. But pay attention, if you want to see how Venziano depicted the quintessentially Villain, unfortunately really existed, that is Adolf Hitler, look for his Madonna of the Third Reich, that horrified so much the bishop of Lucca and the archbishop of Pisa that it was removed from the exhibition in Pietrasanta. Sgarbi proposed it again, in Salemi, few time later.

A classic is forever. When a garment or an accessory is called with the name of a brand instead of its own, is a sign that that brand has become a part of the history of fashion. The first cases are from the 70s, when even a fabric replaced the word “coat”: the “loden”. And Ray-Ban, that replaced the word sunglasses: “I’ve bought a pair of Ray-Ban”. From then on it has been a sequence of icon-brands like K-Way, Levi’s. It was “I’d like to buy a Lacoste” instead of “I’d like to buy a polo shirt”. Later, the same fate for the trench/Burberry and, in the 80s, “I’ve choosen an Armani”. These and many others, are griffes that, if not in the classic dictionary, could surely be included in a thesaurus.