Certain Italian men take the late Giavanni Agnelli's studied carelessness a step too far, in my opinion, and that is in the deliberate mis-buttoning (is that a word?) of their jackets.
I rarely approach perfection in my dress and so have never felt the need to look like I am really just a man who cannot even button his coat correctly. Indeed, on those rare days when I do achieve a sort of simple elegance, the last thing on my mind is how I might make it look less studied.
In the photo, Prescott Bush, United States Senator, father of George H. W. Bush and grandfather of George W. Bush, hosts a golf tournament in his white trousers and with his jacket buttoned at the bottom button, something for which it was not designed. Sprezzatura?
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Sprezzatura?
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I had the recent misfortune of seeing a young hipster at the Ferry Building who appeared to have intentionally misbuttoned his shirt—as in second button to third hole. The rest of his outfit was far too carefully considered for it to have been an accident. I had my camera with me, but was too stunned to put it to use.
You should learn to let the ash fall from the cigar.
I think not. The rumpled hat we can call sprezzatura. The mis-buttoned coat seems to fall into a category more akin to panache; it's a personal idiosyncrasy tolerated because of a man's otherwise admirable flair and respectable demeanor. But it's certainly not just relaxed slovenliness.
And couldn´t it have been simply a distraction?? For example, if I'm excited I tend to nervously button and unbutton my jacket, and more than once i've left the second button tied...
It may be a forerunner of the GTH look that is popular among those of Prescott Bush's socioeconomic/geographic class.
I can go for a little summertime whimsy in ties, socks, and belts, but GTH pants and jackets of any sort are, in my opinion, tacky.
I'm sorry, but this is one thing that simply, to me, in every case, looks like slovenly lack of attention. I see men every day otherwise decently dressed who do not seem to be able to button their jackets correctly. Perhaps this is the suited man's version of letting one's underwear hang out.
I trust this peculiar way of buttoning a jacket has evolved from the way the Duke of Kent buttoned his double breasted suits: with the bottom button only, to give himself an elongated figure. However, it barely ever works on single breasted jackets, which have not been designed with this purpose in mind!
http://davidikus.blogspot.com/
Sprezzatura in Italian doesn't exist as a word. I thought it might have been slang but no.
Disprezzo exists
Titus - it seems that, by looking for sprezzatura in every well-dressed man, one runs the risk of seeing it in some nonchalance which may be evident in any traditionally-dressed man, which is not the same thing. Especially when looking at photographs from the past, where by our standards men dressed well as a norm, it is too easy to see a mis-buttoned jacket or a tie askew as deliberate whereas in fact it is more likely to be general scruffiness.
as said first of all no one knows what the word means. I asked bout ten colleagues all Italian. I'll let you into another secret Al-Fresco is meaningless too. Al Fresco in Italian means prison, the going to,of , er...it.
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