14 June 2018

Umana Riservatezza

Umana riservatezza. Human privacy. This phrase. This phrase has never had more meaning than now. And this Brunello Cucinelli campaign. It speaks a thousand words and my own thoughts, thoughts I sometimes believe I should speak more often.
 
Brunello Cucinelli umana riservatezza

Brunello Cucinelli’s “Umana riservatezza” campaign

 
 
The Italian fashion brand revealed their humanistic campaign Umana riservatezza earlier this week. It’s a call to protecting our intimacy in a media-saturated world that denies our right and need to privacy. The campaign is attached to their Pitti Uomo presentation and it consists of a few shots of portraits of couples of children or adults, who, in their private moments, hide their faces gracefully. It’s the most beautiful, simplest and most poignant campaign and message I have seen in a very long time. Words are truly unnecessary to describe it.

At the “Consulentia 2018” conference held in Rome in February, Brunello Cucinelli, the founder of the eponymous company, expressed his thoughts:

“Privacy is a kindness of the soul that we ought to show both to those we know and to those we come across. It is also a right we are entitled to, and it’s never pleasant to be forced to demand it, since that spoils the charm of its pure sincerity.

Privacy safeguards our intimate sphere; we need the right amount of privacy in order to harmonize our public and private spheres.

Both our public and private lives are essential, but they benefit our well-being only when there is an appropriate balance between the two.

The wise Epicurus clarified better than many others that the right balance is lost when our public life becomes predominant; discomfort arises because we are deprived of our leisure time, which we need in order to rest our soul. We need time to rest.” (read more extracts from the speech here)
 
Brunello Cucinelli 1995 campaign

Brunello Cucinelli 1995 campaign

 
Every day I witness the intrusion of the digital world in our lives. Parents who regularly put their children on social media, but have eyes only for their phones when they take their kids to the park. Teenagers who are mavericks of the latest smart devices, but seem lost in space and are unable to hold eye contact more than a nanosecond when you are trying to have a face-to-face conversation with them. People who flaunt their perfect love life on Facebook, but who are afraid of human bondage and are incapable of communicating in privacy. People who prioritise screens over humans.

How about that first kiss to remain one of your most guarded and cherished secrets? How about your child’s first vacation to remain your special family memory? How about being happy without shouting it to the whole world? We have forgotten how to talk, write (when was the last time you took notes in a notebook, or even expressed a feeling in an online conversation without inserting an emoji?), read a book, connect, observe, be curious (not by searching Google), we have forgotten to give our shoulder (literally) to our friends to cry on, play with our children, get lost and live. I hope you will reflect over this and, when the weekend rolls in tomorrow evening, think twice before you post that picture-perfect weekend escape on Instagram. Have a good one, far from the madding crowd.
 
Brunello Cucinelli Humanist Artisans of the Web campaign

“Sharing.” Brunello Cucinelli | Humanist Artisans of the Web campaign

 
Brunello Cucinelli - Humanist Artisans of the Web campaign

“Widescreen.” Brunello Cucinelli | Humanist Artisans of the Web campaign

 
 
PS: Have a look at the brand’s Humanist Artisans of the Web, too. How I’d like “sharing”, “mobile phone”, “widescreen”, “music streaming” and “selfie” to take on those new old meanings.

PPS: You now what else is amazing? Brunello Cucinelli is a thriving company, but it is rarely present on social media. There are still many people who do not buy only what the internet tells them to buy, people who appreciate the fine things in life. It feels good to know that. Brunello Cucinelli is one of those few fashion companies with handcrafting and humanity at its soul. The company headquarters are in a 14th century castle in Umbria, which Cucinelli bought and restored in 1985, convinced that a tranquil and beautiful setting would enhance creativity and instill harmony among workers. He says that his company’s purpose is to improve the life and growth of people, the most valuable asset in any business, to make work more human, with people at its core.

photos: Brunello Cucinelli

Posted by classiq in Beauty & Beautiful Living, Fashion | | Comments Off on Umana Riservatezza
11 June 2018

Editorial: I’m No Doll

Editorial-La strada Federico Fellini
 

The Editorial: thoughts, short stories
or essays about the world of cinema


 
La strada (1954) is part of Fellini’s solitude trilogy made in the mid-fifties, including Il bidone (1955) and Le notti di Cabiria (1957), that displays the director’s move from neorealism to more autobiographical, fantastically-imbued films. It is a road movie, a “joint experience between man and man”, Fellini described it, and which foreshadows another spiritual journey, in La dolce vita (1960). The film had a resounding success, winning the Silver Lion in Venice and the first of his four Oscars for Best Foreign Film.

Giulietta Masina plays Gelsomina, a simple, poor peasant girl sold by her family to Zampanò (Anthony Quinn), a cruel and brutish circus performer. She becomes part of his act. With her bowler hat, shabby clothes and distinctive physical performance, Masina’s innocent wide eyes and round face brought comparisons with Charlie Chaplin. Chaplin’s tramp and Fellini’s Gelsomina share similar gestures and an innocence that helps them meet the world bravely and put up a bluff. Both are reminiscent of the comedian dell’arte characters. Like so many Fellini creations, Gelsomina was born in his sketchbook, but he based the character on the actual Giulietta Masina, especially on portraits of her from her childhood.

“Giulietta has the lightness of a phantom, a dream, an idea. She possesses the movements, the mimic skills and the cadences of a clown,” the director said about his muse and wife. Gelsomina remained the favourite of all the director’s characters, remarks Chris Wiegand in the book Federico Fellini: The Complete Films. So powerful was Masina’s performance that the public called out for a sequel. Manufacturers of dolls and sweets went after the rights for the character and there was even talk about an animated cartoon. Fellini would have none of it. There was a time when money didn’t dictate everything.

photo: film still | Giulietta Masina as Gelsomina in “La strada” | Ponti-De Laurentiis Cinematografica

Posted by classiq in Editorial, Film | Comments Off on Editorial: I’m No Doll
7 June 2018

Unlikely Style Inspiration: Jaws

Jaws is a classic. It is also a (the) blockbuster. But a blockbuster in the 1970s meant an entirely different thing than it means today. Most importantly though, it’s a great film. Brilliant and terrifying, Hitchcock-style. Jaws (1975) is plain and simple a great adventure movie and one of the most effective thrillers ever made, the kind that keeps you on the edge of your seat, getting you to identify with the characters and asking yourself what you would do if you were them. It is a story that scares the hell out of you from the very beginning (skillfully using the power of the unseen – it is what you don’t see that scares you the most), which is why, I think, it is perfect to watch on the idle days of summer.
 
Unlikely style inspiration - Jaws - Classiq  

“You’re gonna need a bigger boat.”

 
But what I want to talk about today is a little more different. Fashion.

Because you know what Jaws is also about? Three guys in chambray shirts, denim jackets and cotton sportswear take a boat ride off the coast of Amity, New England, in the summertime. Now, all jokes aside, the clothes the three key characters wear are truly timeless. And what truly makes them timeless is that they are “real man shark-hunting gear”. Real men wearing real clothes, which means that anybody can identify with them. Simple, familiar, functional, straightforward and uncomplicated. They know for sure what works and they sure know what doesn’t. Indeed, masculine nautical style is the kind of style that does not age: salt-washed denim and military jackets, black sweaters and grey marl sweatshirts, boat shoes and sneakers, and rugged dive watches. They exude modernity and masculinity.
 
Unlikely style inspiration - Jaws 
But each one of these three guys wears his clothes differently, revealing their distinctive personalities and class differences.

There is Richard Dreyfuss’s Matt Hooper, an oceanographer, a collegiate rich guy. His clothes say Ivy style. The grey marl sweatshirt, for example, is one of the pieces adopted by collegiate preppy style, thus contributing to the transition from its pure functionality, from being strictly a sports garment, to one worn casually. When he goes to chief Brody’s house for dinner, he sports a corduroy jacket with chambray shirt and knitted tie, jeans and boat shoes – the clothes that a well-dressed college man would wear.

Robert Shaw’s rough-edged, old sea dog Quint, on the other hand, is the exact opposite, and everything about his clothing suggests that the last thing on his mind is to impersonate a social creature or to belong. He is as anti-social and anti-conventional as one can be. His clothes serve one purpose and one purpose only: to be worn. His signature long-billed faded cap, blue collar work shirt and fisherman’s jacket not only signal isolation, but the class difference between him and the other two. “You’re a city boy, you’ve counted money all your life”, he tells Hooper, looking at his hands. “Hey, I don’t need this, I don’t need this working-class hero crap”, replies Hooper irritated.

Brody (Roy Scheider) is a middle-class man and his clothes reflect that. He spends more than half of the movie in a cop uniform and Baracuta jacket and it’s interesting to see his style evolve, escaping the restrictions of job and social requirements when he switches to t-shirt, black sweater and jeans when they set sail. He finally seems relieved and at ease when he does that.
 
Unlikely style inspiration - Jaws

Richard Dreyfuss in casual Ivy wardrobe essentials: sweatshirt, denim shirt and, unseen here, jeans and classic canvas shoes.

Unlikely style inspiration - Jaws

Nautical essentials, then and now: chambray shirt, fisherman’s waxed jacket, crewneck knitted sweater, waxed cotton cap

Unlikely style inspiration Roy Schneider in Jaws - Classiq

Roy Scheider in the most democratic look of all: simple t-shirt and blue jeans

 
photos: Zanuck/Brown Productions / Universal Pictures

Posted by classiq in Film, Film costume | | Comments Off on Unlikely Style Inspiration: Jaws
4 June 2018

Summer Reading List N°1

Summer has (unofficially) just begun, but that doesn’t mean we should waste any moment of it with light beach reading. In summer, just like in any other time of the year, I look for books that are less about providing a mere escape and more about involving you in life stories, immersing you in fantastic worlds, about enriching you and opening your mind. A celebration of storytelling in so many different forms.
 
Summer Reading List - Classiq Journal 

 
A few words on my favourite place to shop for books: Cărturești & friends (it’s also where I discovered the extraordinary universe of William Grill’s illustrations and his books, The Wolves of Currumpaw and Shackleton’s Journey – I am working on something special about the latter, soon to be revealed on Classiq). In May, Cărturești & friends was chosen Indie of the Month by The New York Review of Books, the first ever bookshop outside the US to have been featured in their newsletter. Deservedly so. For a look inside and a good talk about books and the art of bookshop keeping, you can read my interview with the man behind this wonderful world of books, discovery and dreaming. I hope you can all find a good independent bookstore near you and visit it often.
 
More book recommendations: Just Kids, by Patti Smith / The Measure of A Man, by Sidney Poitier / Akira Kurosawa: Something Like an Autobiography

Classiq Journal Reading List

Posted by classiq in Books | | Comments Off on Summer Reading List N°1
1 June 2018

Where Are the Male Heroes of Today?

In a time when feminism and gender gap seem to permeate every single discussion, every single film festival and every artist’s work, there is one crucial thing that I would like to become an important part of the conversation again: masculinity.
 
Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway in The Thomas Crown Affair 
I have previously brought up the subject here on Classiq, but what prompted me to do it again was the title of an article appeared in The New York Times about Philip Roth after the novelist’s recent passing away: What Philip Roth Did Not Know About Women Could Fill A Book. I don’t think I have to go further into detail to explain what it was about. But I have to have my say. I don’t understand why it has become necessary for every artist to accommodate every perspective. That’s not what art is about and it is absurd that I have to spell it out. What is happening is outrageous and the NY Times article is an affront to the work of every artist.

Since when must art and literature and every opinion be politically correct? “Speak up” has tragically transformed into “think alike”. To voice your opinion has no value unless your opinion is tasteless, in tune with everyone else’s. Freedom of thinking and originality are sacrificed for the sake of social correctness. It is terrifying. Philip Roth and any other writer’s or artist’s work do not owe anyone anything. Take it or leave it.

That said, what I wanted this article to be about was masculine role models. Yes, the kind of men I would like my son to look up to when he grows up. Because I really can’t think of any famous contemporary figure who can take the place of Steve McQueen, for example. Can you? Can you really think of anyone else who has looked better in chinos and t-shirt? Of course it’s not just about the way he dressed. It is about how good and comfortable he looked in his own skin. It’s about the roles he played and how men wanted to emulate him, learn from him, avoid his mistakes. That’s style, that’s personality, that’s a role model.

And the same goes for Paul Newman, Frank Sinatra, Cary Grant. They taught men how to play the role of man. This is not to say that we should not think beyond a society ruled by a constrictive masculinity, but I do want Steve McQueen to still have an important and necessary place in masculine identity. “Stars then were individuals. Now it’s like they all come out of the same factory”, Terry O’Neill said. Everybody is talking about individuality these days, but nobody seems to have it anymore. That’s what this is all about.

photo: Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway in The Thomas Crown Affair

Posted by classiq in Style | | 4 Comments