Sustainable is chic, the Italian way

How do we become sustainable?

We can’t handle these rhythms anymore, we are like a hamster rolling on the wheel that goes nowhere. And it’s a NEED before we all disappear and implode with Earth who knows where: a statement that maybe 30 years ago could have sounded alarmistic, and now it’s a reality.

The United Nations established the 17 global goals for sustainable living with a deadline to make them a reality by 2030. There’s so much to be done for human rights, clean waters, clean air, and sustainable living.  Some numbers: 75 mill people work in fashion and textile industry; 80% are women between the age of 18 and 24. Too many of them are exploited, victims of verbal and physical abuse, paid below standard living needs, work in precarious establishments. Yes, those are the workers who made the pants you are wearing. 

Now that you know, does that make you feel good, still?

I had to do something. I first became member of the U.N. Women Miami Chapter and you can too.

What to do NOW.

Go in your closet and simply be, look around.

Are you happy?

Does whatever you own make you feel empowered, make you look good and feel good? Is your closet inspiring when Monday morning comes and you got to get dressed for work? Do you know where your clothes come from? Are there useless purchases that you made last minute and never wore?

If you have answered NO to any of the above, there are many ways to come out of the guts.

Purge, eliminate, donate, resell, swap, consign, re-cycle, upcycle. Replenish mindfully, with knowledge, researching, sort what you need from what you want, what you should have and what you’ll need, staples, capricious,

Sustainable is sexy, not boring. Sustainable is smart and modern, mindless consumption is so 2004 that is a bankrupt concept.

“Sustainable chic” means that you can be elegant, chic, strike attention for your recognizable style with a few items of the highest quality, made of sublime materials by expert hands and skilled artisans and nobody will ever judge you if you have already worn them.

When you adopt luxury as a state of mind, you’ll twist things the Italian way

Borrow from the boys, spring edition

The boyfriend cardigan, the boyfriend jean, the blazer and its origin from military uniforms. I have worked some winter files last month, now it's time to spruce the closet up for spring. 

"Floral for spring: groundbreaking" this was Meryl Streep in Devils Wear Prada, the movie that showcased the behind the scenes of the fashion world.

When we were kids, white was first worn on Palm Sunday after the wintery dark cold months, pastel and flowers were for Easter Sunday and from there on, linens, silks, flowers, open toe sandals, frilly and voluminous transparencies ensued. I was always a disrupter, not by choice though, that's where my father appears in my life by letting me know that "we don't follow trends, we set them" after I was complaining I had to wear an hitchy hand-made sweater he had brought me from Scotland, whereas my friends were wearing Benetton. 

1. No need to leave the flowers at home, simply make it badass by adding textures, like a leather motorcycle jacket or a pair of ankle boots in a contrasting color.
2. Don't be the fashion victim, make it personal. Don't add pain to pain, flower dress with pumps, boring, think outisde of the box. Polka dot tights and a military jacket and some feathers, think Miu Miu while mixing and don't stop mixing because "what will they thin of me?". 
3. Trickle into the sartorial dress code with femininity. think of Diane Keaton in Annie Hall and don't be shy and explore the man section at the thrift store. 

1. You don't need a graphic Tshirt to remind you you are a woman. It's a superpower you are born with. The highest form of empowering energy a woman has is her vulnerability: the Archimedes lever that will help you take over. Until we let hypocrisy make us believe that we cannot cry in public or show our feelings for a child or an elderly person, we give in. 
2. Wear pants under a dress. This has been seen on the runways for this spring and intensively for the fall, it's not for every body shape, it tends to enlarge the proportions if you are minute, and elongate if you are tall, the irony of life. 
3. Flip the script, there's no #dresslikeawoman dress code.
4. Corporate attire was dead even before Working Girl but when a man asks for style advice, give profusely. 

That time we ate a 4-pound chunk of Parmigiano Reggiano

Tonight in Italy is #PRnight2016 that is the night dedicated to celebrate the one and only Parmigiano Reggiano #theonlyparmesan

I accepted the investiture of Parmigiano Reggiano Ambassador as it is: a diplomatic role of story teller and in the next three months it is my intention that you all become acquainted with the Parmigiano Reggiano. It's just a cheese, you say, but it's ingrained in our culture and lifestyle, in slow food and zero mile approach to nutrition that it can be adapted to many other cultures and experiences. But as usual, you must follow some rules.

Really, the only thing I have to say is that there is only ONE parmesan, which is the one produced in the province of Parma, in Emilia Romagna (the one in the middle of boot, north of Tuscany and south of Lombardia). Parmigiano means 'from Parma'.

Why? Because to produce it there’s one rule above all that must be respected: use whole milk from the cows that live there. Very simple: soil, sun, cold, winds, trees, vegetation, seasons it’s a whole ecosystem that cannot be reproduced anywhere else.

Thinking of what parmigiano means to us, I came down to many depictions and adjectives, none of them is related to calories-count, fat content or tin container in the supermarket aisle.

CURIOSITY: Italian pediatricians recommend introducing Parmigiano Reggiano to 9 mo children for its content of calcium, protein, vitamins easy to digest.

I know some friends will be shocked or maybe even offended, “here she comes again, with the Italians do it better” but if you spar me a few minutes, you’ll get the point.

Convivial is the first adjective that comes to mind because:

1.   There’s no Italian fridge without a chunk of parmigiano

2.   My maternal grandparents

3.   My childhood

Imagine being in front of this nearly 4-pound slice from a 14 months Parmigiano Reggiano wheel at room temperature? All I can think of is a house full of people, wine and chatter, bread crumbles allover, maybe a fireplace, laughter and clicking glasses, something organized last minute, where friendship or family are more important of the formality of all glasses and plates matching.

Some of my friends and people that I have met in these two American decades of my life, had no idea THAT was parmigiano. It comes down to a cultural divide that the cheese itself will reconcile.

My story is very simple, and it’s a window to a typical Sunday in an Italian province.

After Sunday mass, we’d go to my grandmother’s for lunch, the five of us and it was a jovial and happy closure of the week (except for my father, the son-in-law, but that’s for a different time.) We’d buy the fresh pastries at the “pasticceria” and we’d make it to my grandparents’ apartment where the aroma of ragu with the bone of the “arista” simmering was mixed with the pungent smell of the shoe creams my grandpa used to polish his repertoire for the week, dark brown and black.

It all revolved around the kitchen and the covered balcony while the table was already set with embroidered table cloth and linen napkins in the living, where life was shared with a slow lunch, lots of chatter, maybe figurines, games, lots of laughter and screaming, no TV and limited infiltration of the scents of the kitchen.

When the water was boiling and grandma was ready to “buttare la pasta”, pour salt and past in to cook, my grandfather’s task was one of the best ones I have ever enjoyed: grating the parmesan to pour over the steaming pasta on the table.

The best part of that grating business was that he had two different chunks of parmigiano, quite the treat. My grandmother would always buy two different ages, 24 months to grate and 14 months “per I bimbi”, that is “for the children”.

And boy if we knew!

We would roam around grandpa like bees around the fig tree, he would let us have chunks “without anyone seeing you” (and by that he meant his daughter, aka my mother, because if we ate before sitting at the table, we wouldn’t eat the meal.) And that wasn’t it: when we’d seat at our designated post, which sometimes was a separate table just for the kids, the secret was to look on the main course plate, hidden by the pasta bowl, because chances were it was decorated by mini morsels of parmigiano all around.

Now that’s my story, a very sweet and tender one because yes my grandfather Bruno was a sort of a Santa all year round, but I am sure thousands of my Italian peeps and readers have their own grandpa version of the Parmigiano Reggiano.

HOW TO ENJOY THE 14 MONTHS:

·         Room temperature

·         Over a wooden board

·         Cut in bites

·         Enjoy profusely

·         Red wine (don’t tell my brothers, but I even go with prosecco and rose’ in the summer)

·         In the fall: pears, grapes, olives, the first sausages, artichokes or mushrooms under oil

·         In the spring and summer: strawberries and the real aceto balsamico or why not figs

·         Aperitivo and also when you have last minute friends over, remember it’s a perfect meal that provides the right amount of calcium and there’s no kid who doesn’t like it

SOME THING YOU NEVER DO (to look like a pro):

• Ask to pour it over any pasta with seafood or shellfish. That’s one of those things like asking for a cappuccino after a meal, that’ll give you the foreigner passport.
• Throw the rind away. Secret is, when you make il minestrone, the vegetable soup, you scrape the dirt off the rind and throw it in and let it simmer. You are welcome.

THE ITALIAN WAY: according to our grandmother’s recommendations, you don’t buy grated cheese punto!, because “you don’t know what they grate, they use the left-over of what they cut from the rind” and I spare you from the rest of the horrifying conspiracy theories of what we were told it was contained, but rat’s pee was the most decent.

TRUTH is the real Parmigiano Reggiano cannot contain shelf-stabilizing additives nor can be dehydrated. NOW you know why the whatever brand powdery stuff they sell in a non-refrigerated aisle at the supermarket is a sign that it’s not an Italian thing. Makes sense?

MAKE IT TO THE COMMENTS, I WANT TO KNOW YOUR STORY OR HOW THIS WILL MAKE YOU CHANGE YOUR FAMILY STORY