The Brits have a lot to learn from the Italians in the fashion stakes, says the Insider
The Insider is all about the work/life balance; I work to live, I do not live to work. All those of you at Herbert Smith et al, slogging your guts out till 11pm night after night—or playing Super Mario Brothers, on account of there isn’t much work on at the moment but you can’t afford to be seen going home at 5pm—have a look around at the partners whose lives you are, presumably, hoping one day to emulate. Are they, almost without exception, sad fat old men with incipient heart disease, borderline alcoholism, harridan ex-spouses and much younger partners only interested in them for the bank account? Is that really what you want to look back on when you’re 60?
I was at the Association of Law Costs Draftsmen (ALCD) annual general meeting in March; as always, it took place at a golf hotel and as always the costs draftsmen took this as their cue to come out in their casual gear and have fun in the sun in between hamster-wheeling away in their coffin-like offices.
I was hard pressed not to guffaw aloud at one specimen stood next to me at reception; he was wearing a “wife beater”—a t-shirt without sleeves, apparently so-called because men called Bubba who live in trailer parks, go huntin’ and probably know where at least 15 hitchhikers are buried, are fond of wearing same—and clamdiggers.
Now, these are difficult garments to carry off; Kate Moss can just about manage it, the late lamented dear Lady Di could probably have done it if she would ever have been seen out in them, which is highly speculative. On the fiftysomething CEO of a costs firm, even with the Fake Bake, hair plugs and capped teeth, they just looked unutterably sad, and it didn’t help that le tout ensemble was in a fetching shade of dung. If he had gone into Lilywhites and said “I have a lot of money, no taste and I want you to make me look like a big Essex jobby” they really could not have done better for him.
Itching to tell you his name now but best not, eh?
Now what, you might ask, has this rather snide fashion commentary got to do with work/life balance? Well, in a recent exchange of e-mails my editor suggested I might like to say something about how the Italians relax. Judging by the length of time lawsuits take to get resolved in Italy, I’d say mostly during business hours. It does not help that everyone seems to work the system to its fullest extent; even Silvio Berlusconi, recently deposed as the country’s prime minister, is at it, passing a law while in power to give any serving prime minister immunity from prosecution and—after his unsuccessful election campaign—ducking and diving allegedly in the hopes of any such action becoming time-barred, which in Italy can happen very quickly.
Not that I am in any position to criticise Italy’s legal system, not least because I know nothing about it—but when has that ever stopped me? Corruption in Italy always makes big news, especially whenever anybody mentions the “m” word. In truth, however, the Mafia, while a real presence, is limited in geographical scope and probably exerts no more influence than many big businesses in the UK. Certainly anyone who has ever tried to oppose a planning application by one of the big supermarkets here might have a comment or two.
When it comes to relaxing, however, the Italians do have it taped. You would never catch an Italian businessman at a hotel reception looking like Mr Hankey the Christmas Poo from South Park, as was brought home to me on my recent trip with the Italian. He, I have to say, has been Anglicised to the extent that he was content to stroll around in various permutations of the Fred Perry shirt, including at least one with a discreet Tottenham Hotspur emblem on it. As such, his status as a style guru is, at least for now, in severe doubt.
We went to Portofino for the day, to check out the town ahead of Rod Stewart’s wedding there last weekend; alas, as our invitation inexplicably failed to arrive, our recce was somewhat wasted, but we had an enjoyable day seeing how the other half lives. Portofino is famous as the playground of the beautiful people from the 1960s onwards; Sophia Loren used to have a home here and everyone who is anyone will, at one time, have gone for a paddle there; it is a bit like Alicia Douvall’s bedchamber in this regard.
It is very chichi indeed; Rod Stewart’s children reportedly ran up a £10,000 restaurant tab (including £1,000 tip) after the wedding. I can only say that I was monumentally parched, but every time I indicated a likely-looking café, the Italian vetoed it on the grounds of not wanting to spend a month’s wages; we eventually found a reasonably-priced place after over an hour’s trek uphill, but because of my diet I couldn’t even order lobster and champagne to spite him.
Sartorially, Portofino is famous for its linen, and we saw many Italian business types in colours that, worn by men here, might excite comment; pinks, lilacs and corals predominating. Coupled with the ubiquitous man bag—and I’m not talking a dispatch case or briefcase, I’m talking full-on shoulder strap buff leather that would go very well with my Jean-Paul Gaultier if you must know—the effect was metrosexual to say the least. However, given our proximity to Napoli (a mere 40 minutes’ boat ride) and the impossibility of knowing whether these peacocks were well-connected—added to the fact that the Italians invented the term machismo precisely because they had most frequent need of it—we simply admired their style. I think I should send pictures to Mr X of the ALCD to wean him off sewage chic; I’ll let you know what he says.
Jennifer James is the Insider
