Extraordinary stories and men of style: the secret of sprezzatura (EPISODE 8)

I

Located in a vast flat-bottomed plain, the city of Florence hosts a strange spectacle every season. Twice a year, in June and January, thousands of people from the four corners of the world gather on the concrete square of Fortezza da Basso: they are the peacocks of Pitti.

The peacock's goal is to evaluate the competition and impress its peers. To do this, he wears the most prodigious adornment possible. He needs to sing better, higher and more in tune so that the photographers will notice him in the middle of the crowd.

Virgil, a young fashion journalist, had come to observe this bizarre migration. He had been sent here to determine exactly what sprezzatura was. Term that everyone talks about but that no one ever manages to define. His place at the fashion journal in which he worked was at stake, so much so that Virgil was determined to return with the precious trophy, the definition, the watchword of Italian elegance.

So, for a few days, he opened his eyes wide and took notes:

A peacock as huge as a mountain held an orange pipe between its teeth just under its extraordinary mustache, as long as a long sob. The pipe was matched with a peach hat bristling with pheasant feathers. His yellow pilled boiled wool coat brushed the ground as he walked. And his shiny shoes were black with red laces. “Was that sprezzatura ?” Virgil wondered, watching the parades, his eyes moving behind the tinted lenses of his glasses.

Virgil then saw that, sitting on a small rampart, a stone parapet, young pugs were barking. The shirts were colorful, the patterns were mixed up, the colors were confusing, there were too many feathers, too many hats too crooked and the glasses to be seen, so much so that the photographers didn't really know what to do. Virgil also observed collared beards, worked with lasers to outline the chin and cheeks and the top of the upper lip.

They had these gestures: the shoulders that shrug, the circular movements of the arms as if to shoo away flies and the backs that bend backwards as they burst out laughing.

Some stayed up all the time, pretending to make important, animated phone calls, at the ends of the earth, fingers clenched in rockstar rings, a kilt-style checkered suit. And fur too, like a repentant mackerel.

We saw exuberant cigars exuding puffs that smelled of leather and cognac. A French beret. A fuchsia cardigan. A white beard on hair like that. They paraded around shaking their feathers when they encountered other large peacocks and it was as if they were going to fight. Without ever, however, coming to blows entirely. They stuck their noses high in the air and passed in front of the river as if it didn't exist, or rather, as if its existence didn't matter.

Sometimes on the road, the peacocks, when coming, formed a line of four, five or six individuals and never broke the line. So much so that the inhabitants of Florence, accustomed to this surge of colors but disturbed in their intimate city, honked loudly behind the peacocks who did not want to leave. The city was theirs for four days.

Sometimes, we saw packs of peacocks from the same family, with the same coat, arriving like waves on a beach and the Fortezza da Basso was theirs for a few moments. It was, for example, Thom Browne's army with structured shoulders, white, blue, red and gray above all that buzzed as it passed.

The young peacocks of Pitti cartwheeled all day long and, when evening came, they glided slowly towards the places of celebration. There, they forgot the quarrels and the pecks. They ate. They were drinking. They were chatting.

Their coat had changed into something darker that went better with the modesty of the night. Everything is always more solemn when lit by a few candles.

And Virgil, hiding in the dark life as in times of war, close to a cypress tree, could not enter the enclosure where the peacocks were. He saw them with their immense gestures, their hands pinched, and laughing in such a burst that one could hear the city resound as it responded in echo.

Virgil could almost smell the alcoholic scent of the wine they were drinking. At one point, one of them went out to make a phone call and, when he hung up, he interrupted him quickly, with all the enthusiasm of his youth:

- Good evening dear peacock!

You had to approach them with all the politeness you were capable of, otherwise he might get scared and leave. The peacock put his right foot in front of his left and bowed in a magnificent cartwheel, his smoking cigarette stuck between his lips. Once he stood up completely, he flapped the ruby ​​canvas of his jacket. He was quite proud of his performance. Virgil, who had an acute professional conscience, asked him without transition:

- What is sprezzatura ?

The peacock laughs and says, embracing the scene with a sweeping gesture:

- Well, that's all!

- All that?

- Well, everything you see. It’s exuberance, eccentricity, my old man! The incredible mustaches, so long and heavy that they can drag their wearers into sprezzaturesque falls! Tie clips! Maharaja's jewelry too. Who shine. Hands crumbling under the weight of the rings. Lord's capes. All that! It’s a show!

And then, cartwheeling once again, he disappeared into the festive crowd forever.

In the evening, Virgil tried to find the words that the peacock had said in order to put them on paper, to capture them before they flew away. But it all sounded false.

II

Virgil was wandering around Florence and peacocks were everywhere. Their adornments went with everything: with the striped walls of the Duomo, with the heroic statues of the Piazza della Signoria, with, finally, the colorful fronts of the ice cream sellers.

Leaning against the door of a cream-colored Porsche 356, an older peacock waited for someone. He wore an impeccable silver mustache. His hair of the same color was slicked back and made a little dark gray bounce at the nape of his neck. His double-breasted jacket was royal blue and the lapels of it rose high on his shoulder. A white poplin shirt, with a collar whose points formed almost a flat angle, was the perfect backdrop to a navy knit tie. His legs were covered in faded denim cut not too close to the body and his black moccasins were rather round like those of the English.

Virgil approached.

“The weather is nice, isn’t it?” he asked.

The silver peacock rolled his eyes before giving Virgil a wry look.

- Hello young man. What do you want?, he asked in the voice of a father.

- I'm a journalist, said Virgil. My editor-in-chief sends me to discover the secret of sprezzatura .

At this precise moment, a woman came out of the building in front of which the peacock was waiting. A woman like we only see in films or like we imagine in well-written novels. In her arms was a well-behaved young boy wearing a shirt and a bow tie. She got into the car whose door the peacock had opened and, as he got behind the wheel, he said to Virgil:

- The secret of sprezzatura is kept by our master Renato Plutino who is on the island of Ponza. Everyone knows him. Go see him, he will be happy to reveal this secret to you, which is not really a secret.

He then revved his old Porsche and drove into the cobbled street whose walls were tied together with threads of white linen.

III

The sea smelled of the sun. And Virgil received from time to time marvelous splashes on his face which made him happy. He leaned over the edge, just to experience what flying fish must experience. And sometimes, in the shadow of a wave, he thought for a moment he saw some legendary monster sleeping at the bottom of the water. And then he tasted the salty flavor of the wind. The island seen from the Tyrrhenian Sea was like a round biscuit nibbled all around.

He finally set foot on the pontoon which creaked, unless it was the boat that had brought him here. His clothes smelled of adventure and kerosene. He showed up at the port bar and was shown the way to Plutino's house. In the heights of the rocky island, we could see a white house, it was his.

Virgil quickly found himself in the middle of a yellow carpet of broom which gave him the impression that the island was on fire. Pollen and dust rose together into the air and swirled around him like a swarm of insects.

After a long time, he found the house. It was made of stone and the walls were coated with a bright, almost sonorous white lime. In places, sections had been painted azure blue.

On the terrace which was like a balcony overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea, there was a man and, at that moment, Virgil did not really know what he was doing. As he got closer, he saw that on the table he was sitting at, a champagne-colored Prince of Wales jacket was spread out and he was sewing on a button.

Virgil took the time to see, to look closely rather, where the old wise man lived. Everything was beautiful because everything was authentic. The garden did not seem to have been studied and yet there was a kind of furious harmony emanating from it, as if it could not be otherwise.

As he advanced in the direction of the old wise man, to greet him, the latter stopped in his task and put a hand on the head of his dog who was preparing to react to the presence of a stranger. , like good family dogs do. The docile beast looked at its master in their kind manner and lay down again, huffing; although his tail was still outstretched and his ears were erect too.

- Are you lost?, he asked her.

- I don't know. I'm looking for Mr. Plutino's house, Virgil said cautiously.

He chuckled discreetly before rising gracefully from his chair and saying:

- It's me.

His light green cotton voile shirt was open quite far and revealed some of his white and black hair on his copper skin. He wore black glasses that looked heavy and would have looked good in a Helmut Newton photo. The dark green pants he wore cinched his waist just above the hips and the bottom of them fell naturally over his sandals like a rich rhyme in a poem.

He put on the jacket whose button he had finished sewing on and it sat advantageously on his shoulders and, as he came up to her, she moved like him. The collar of his shirt was poorly placed, but it was much better than the most perfect collar.

- I have heard about you, said Virgil in a blank voice because something had to be said.

Now that he saw him up close, he knew how old he was. The old man took off his glasses and his eyes were like two emeralds stuck in a hard rock.

- Ah, and what did they tell you?, he then probed, in a deep voice that didn't say much.

“That you were the father of sprezzatura ,” Virgil said to him, portentously.

And he started laughing. Like a sudden explosion, like thunder rumbles, like a whip in the air.

“Come with me,” he urged.

        Virgil followed him into the calm of his house, the decoration of which consisted of a mixture of furniture, materials and colors which only had this place in common and which nevertheless came together in a funny way: the walls of the living room were grey-blue and the parquet floor was black, there was wood, there was gold and the green velvet of the large sofas gave a lot of serenity to the whole. Bouquets of broom were popping up all over the room. From the ceiling fell countless drops of crystal gathered into a soft chandelier of light. The white curtains moved gently in the wind.

        The wise old man invited him to lunch. And then, they went for a walk on beautiful Ponza, whose steep cliffs always lifted Virgil's heart. In the evening, they dined right next to the old port where the sailors were still shouting things in Italian. The young journalist saw how elegant the old sage was, especially in the expressions of affection he received from others and gave them. He always had a kind word, never wanted to seem too curious or not curious enough. In any circumstance, there was always something wrong with the old wise man's outfit, but he never seemed to mind it.

During all the time they spent together, Virgil's first question remained unanswered and he never dared to ask it again.

Virgil stayed to sleep. And, soon, a day turned into a week. And a week in a month. Maybe the old man felt alone, at least he never asked Virgil to leave.

        The latter received calls every day from his boss who ordered him to return with the precious definition that he still had not written. But Virgil felt like he was accomplishing something greater here. As if he were the penholder for a novel not yet written. Plutino never spoke of sprezzatura but showed Virgil everything he needed to see. And, luckily, Virgil was paying attention.

        Two months after their meeting, Renato Plutino died (from fatigue it was said) and Virgil returned home.

******

Returning home, Virgil wrote:

“ Sprezzatura has nothing to do with the spectacular. It’s quite the opposite.

People as they present themselves to us are their only truth. Don't get attached to who they really are deep down. Very often this is disappointing. The way they adorn themselves is the only thing that really matters because it is a voluntary, premeditated construction, whereas their personality is the sum of events independent of their will. If the cliffs have this shape, it is because of the waves which eroded them. Thus, clothes, when they are intended to express, speak more intimate truths.

Thus, the Pitti peacocks who err on the side of too much coquetry are quite the opposite.

True sprezzatura praises discretion and the intimate. She suggests but never shouts. It is not in the garish color, it does not reveal too much. Sprezzatura means hiding all one's efforts to appear from the eyes; it is the opposite of affectation, the aim of which is to gain the advantage, to gain over the other. The aim of sprezzatura is rather decorum, politeness, as Castiglione described and invented it. Sprezzatura is modesty, a hypocrisy useful for appearing as natural as possible.

La sprezzatura is a Japanese garden. It's a faded wall in a sumptuously decorated room; it’s hiding all the books you’ve read; it's freckles on perfect skin; it is a smile addressed to one's neighbor; these are shoes that have not been overly iced; It’s a fabric that has creased a little.

"Those pants you're wearing go so well with that hat you put on so wrong. And that tie is so new that it doesn't belong to you yet. Make mistakes. But make them well." This is what Renato Plutino could say if he had to make a theory of what he experienced every day. “ Rather than knowing all the rules by heart, pretend you never knew them.”

The world is on fire, these worn out tassel loafers are my answer. Don't try to make it too perfect. But at the same time, it is by knowing what a style can offer that is most perfect that we can manage to modulate it. Only after drinking too much do you know when to stop next time. Building your clothing style is like building a city. First you have to build perfect streets, sumptuous buildings and everything goes very well together. And then, one day, the walls are dull and the colors no longer shine the same and the moss is on the roofs and the shutters creak. And then, everything is more beautiful, more comfortable, everything has more panache. In short, everything has more grace."