#NYFW has come and gone in three episodes 2/3

New York Fashion Week Fall 2014 before, during and after.

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The Fashion Calendar was published with frequent last minute frantic updates. Did they really know what were they doing?

Then Cathy Horyn resigns. The veteran of the New York Times Fashion & Style and known for a fired up exchange with Oscar de la Renta one her peculiar culinary taste is gone. 

GOSSIP [read here]

Valentino Couture

I am never bored or ashamed at repeating over and over that I grew up where Giacomo Puccini was born, lived and composed. 

Could I be prouder of the fact that le arie of La Madama Butterfly and La Boheme as a child were as frequent in the house as a PBJ sandwich in an American household? 

And now, the Emperor’s heirs, Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli followed their inspiration of letting the music and the stories of the operas (the most famous in the world) inspiring them. Result: an outstanding spring Couture staged under a backdrop of butterfles. Sublime execution of Couture. 

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Tailored men: trend-spotting at Pitti fall 2014

It is not the usual trade show, Pitti Uomo is where you spot the trends for the season to come (just watch closely).

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Pitti Immagine is a state of mind, I don’t know if I read it somewhere. I most probably made it up because I believe in it.

Imagine having an automatic teller randomly dispensing gorgeous men impeccably tailored and formidably dressed for three consecutive days . Unabridged, like a dictionary, un-interrupted and thoughtfully edited. 

No Milan, New York or London compares. Maybe Paris for Couture, but you have to be in the street and venue hopping. In Florence it all happens in the magic of the Fortezza da Basso. And here comes my being Tuscan and growing up with Florence in my pores, but maybe that is one intrinsic reasons why Pitti is Pitti and the best showdown of that sophisticated European sensibility.

La Fortezza, the ‘barn’ where the Medici used to keep their horses for pleasure and for war during the florentine renaissance, opens up for Pitti Uomo (not to confuse it with Palazzo Pitti, another historical Palazzo where another piece of fashion history was made when Italian fashion was born in 1952). It is a Pandora’s Box that opens up to centuries of history, battles, the Renaissance period, Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, the arts, the culture and everything that the dynasty of the Medici family left for the world. There, not in any other frescoed palazzo Strozzi, in the barn, is the background for the showcase of men fashion for the next season.

Here’s an example of what happens through those graveled alleys. It is not the usual trade show, Pitti Uomo is where you spot the trends for the season to come (just watch closely).

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Tailoring and pinstripes. Casentino, an exclusive fabric produced in small quantities nel Casentino, is coming back. When we were kids it was orange or green, now it comes in all shades of grey = a man wearing Casentino knows his chicness and exquisite shit.

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Prince of Wales and houndstooth 

Devils in details: beard (well groomed), bracelets and the perfect touch of color in an otherwise wintery mise.

When a man knows how to mix patterns is marriage material (I said it).

What are the lessons we can get from a man closet that would make us wear man clothing and still be feminine and chic?

On to the next post peeps and if you have ideas, by all means, come along!