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It seems like only yesterday that I was gawking at the Isaia whore house in the middle of Pitti 87 last winter. And yet here I am again, boarding a plane on my way to Pitti 88, with the puzzling theme of PittiColor (were the others in black and white?). I know we need a Pitti every six months to start the buying season, but this one came too fast. (That’s…not what she said? Sorry, with no Jasper to keep me company this time, you guys are going to have to bear the full brunt of ******* jokes.)
On the flight over, I read a biography of Dorothy Parker. I recognized a terrifying amount of my life in hers (terrifying because of her multiple attempts at suicide and crippling alcoholism, calamities I have so far avoided). She started out writing for Vogue before quickly working her way up to Vanity Fair and then The New Yorker, to which she contributed from its inception. This was back when "wit" could be a job title. She was always half insider, half outsider - both author and critic, rich and broke, a New Yorker often in Hollywood, half-Jew who couldn’t wait to marry into a Gentile surname (maiden name Rothschild, but not those Rothschilds). She shared just enough with the people around her that when she ridiculed them (which she did scathingly and relentlessly) she was inevitably ridiculing herself.
Jabbing at Pitti is good fun - but it temps me so much as a target precisely because the silliest parts (the flamboyant and mercenary pleas for attention, the maudlin revisions or wholesale constructions of brand images and histories, the self-seriousness) are monsters created in the images of the demons that lurk behind my own interest in style and clothes. This realization - conscious or no - leads to mockery as a way to create distance.
Parker felt the same attraction to and revulsion from spectacle and glamor, especially the expensive kind. One early verse of hers ran as follows:
Why is it no one ever sent me yet
One perfect limousine, do you suppose?
Ah no, it’s always just my luck to get
One perfect rose
And yet, in one of my favorite of her quotes, she complained of one party: “This isn’t just plain terrible; this is fancy.” Anyway, whatever else it is, Pitti is not just plain terrible. Maybe that’s why we keep going back.
I had a couple of hours between my plane arriving in Milan and my train leaving for Florence, just enough time to visit Il Vecchio Drappiere and pick up a finished suit at Musella Dembech. This requires a short trip on the metro from the Stazione Centrale to the Duomo, and then a bit of walking. To the north of the Duomo, Via Montenapoleone, Via della Spiga, and the streets that run between them (the geometry is not exact) form the “Golden Triangle” of high-priced fashion retail. I had no interest in that, but my route to Il Vecchio, then to the Musella atelier, then back to the metro, described a triangle to the west of the Duomo. I guess I’ll call that the Woolen Triangle and leave the Golden one to the pigeons*.
The Duomo
Il Vecchio Drappiere has fabric stacked to the ceiling - more than I could investigate in this brief trip. I basically walked in looking like a sweat-soaked crazy person, patted down a pile of old Carlo Barbera jacketing, picked out a patterned linen jacketing (forgive me Manton, for I have sinned), and left faster than the nice lady behind the counter could say “molto dandy.” I would like to get an hour or two to spend there some other time. It’s true that, even with so much fabric there, you will still have more choices going through most tailors’ swatch books. But many of the fabrics at Il Vecchio are unique and rare stuff that you won’t find in books anymore, and besides, I think being able to look at a whole bolt of fabric instead of a small swatch gives a better idea of what the final jacket will look like.
Il Vecchio Drappiere windowfront
Carlo Barbera jacketing
Since I plan to wear the Musella suit to Pitti tomorrow, I will put off commentary until then. All I will say for now is that I’m glad they had it ready, since the only other tailored jacket I have with me is the one I wore on the plane. Managing luggage space when you plan to pick up a few jackets during your trip (this one from Musella, plus more from Naples after Pitti) forces you to take some chances.
Musella gun club jacket (not mine).
On the metro ride back, I noticed an advertisement for upcoming Milan performances of Jesus Christ Superstar, which outlandishly claimed that the show would feature the “original ‘Jesus’“.
Anyway, I made my train, with my own perfect limousines - a new suit and a length of fabric. Maybe in four days they’ll seem fancy.
The linen I left with. NSFSF.
*There must be some kind Italian pigeon super race. Pigeons here fear no man; their multitude blackens the skies above and the whitens the surfaces below. The Duomo is actually made of brick, and only looks like marble due to the patina of pigeon **** it acquires between the infrequent Italian rainstorms.
Follow all of Styleforum's Pitti Uomo 88 coverage.
On the flight over, I read a biography of Dorothy Parker. I recognized a terrifying amount of my life in hers (terrifying because of her multiple attempts at suicide and crippling alcoholism, calamities I have so far avoided). She started out writing for Vogue before quickly working her way up to Vanity Fair and then The New Yorker, to which she contributed from its inception. This was back when "wit" could be a job title. She was always half insider, half outsider - both author and critic, rich and broke, a New Yorker often in Hollywood, half-Jew who couldn’t wait to marry into a Gentile surname (maiden name Rothschild, but not those Rothschilds). She shared just enough with the people around her that when she ridiculed them (which she did scathingly and relentlessly) she was inevitably ridiculing herself.
Jabbing at Pitti is good fun - but it temps me so much as a target precisely because the silliest parts (the flamboyant and mercenary pleas for attention, the maudlin revisions or wholesale constructions of brand images and histories, the self-seriousness) are monsters created in the images of the demons that lurk behind my own interest in style and clothes. This realization - conscious or no - leads to mockery as a way to create distance.
Parker felt the same attraction to and revulsion from spectacle and glamor, especially the expensive kind. One early verse of hers ran as follows:
Why is it no one ever sent me yet
One perfect limousine, do you suppose?
Ah no, it’s always just my luck to get
One perfect rose
And yet, in one of my favorite of her quotes, she complained of one party: “This isn’t just plain terrible; this is fancy.” Anyway, whatever else it is, Pitti is not just plain terrible. Maybe that’s why we keep going back.
I had a couple of hours between my plane arriving in Milan and my train leaving for Florence, just enough time to visit Il Vecchio Drappiere and pick up a finished suit at Musella Dembech. This requires a short trip on the metro from the Stazione Centrale to the Duomo, and then a bit of walking. To the north of the Duomo, Via Montenapoleone, Via della Spiga, and the streets that run between them (the geometry is not exact) form the “Golden Triangle” of high-priced fashion retail. I had no interest in that, but my route to Il Vecchio, then to the Musella atelier, then back to the metro, described a triangle to the west of the Duomo. I guess I’ll call that the Woolen Triangle and leave the Golden one to the pigeons*.
The Duomo
Il Vecchio Drappiere has fabric stacked to the ceiling - more than I could investigate in this brief trip. I basically walked in looking like a sweat-soaked crazy person, patted down a pile of old Carlo Barbera jacketing, picked out a patterned linen jacketing (forgive me Manton, for I have sinned), and left faster than the nice lady behind the counter could say “molto dandy.” I would like to get an hour or two to spend there some other time. It’s true that, even with so much fabric there, you will still have more choices going through most tailors’ swatch books. But many of the fabrics at Il Vecchio are unique and rare stuff that you won’t find in books anymore, and besides, I think being able to look at a whole bolt of fabric instead of a small swatch gives a better idea of what the final jacket will look like.
Il Vecchio Drappiere windowfront
Carlo Barbera jacketing
Since I plan to wear the Musella suit to Pitti tomorrow, I will put off commentary until then. All I will say for now is that I’m glad they had it ready, since the only other tailored jacket I have with me is the one I wore on the plane. Managing luggage space when you plan to pick up a few jackets during your trip (this one from Musella, plus more from Naples after Pitti) forces you to take some chances.
Musella gun club jacket (not mine).
On the metro ride back, I noticed an advertisement for upcoming Milan performances of Jesus Christ Superstar, which outlandishly claimed that the show would feature the “original ‘Jesus’“.
Anyway, I made my train, with my own perfect limousines - a new suit and a length of fabric. Maybe in four days they’ll seem fancy.
The linen I left with. NSFSF.
*There must be some kind Italian pigeon super race. Pigeons here fear no man; their multitude blackens the skies above and the whitens the surfaces below. The Duomo is actually made of brick, and only looks like marble due to the patina of pigeon **** it acquires between the infrequent Italian rainstorms.
Follow all of Styleforum's Pitti Uomo 88 coverage.
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