Published in L'Officiel Hommes Italia No. 8

        To be a jetsetter in the 1950s meant being in the South of France. Your suits were sleek and tailored, your sunglasses were dark, your drink was cold; the war was over, the money was rolling in and you were free from care. Instead of muttering to yourself, “What the devil is going to ruin me next?”You exclaimed, “What novel and thrilling distraction can I frivolously spend my strong American dollars on?” 

         The new jet set itinerary: LA, Paris, Marbella, Rome, St. Tropez, Portofino and Cannes provided diversions galore. It’s 1953, you board the first-class le Train Bleu in Calais, France and a day later you are basking in the Mediterranean sun. The bikini-clad girls are frolicking. On the train ride down, you finished reading the bestseller Casino Royale by newcomer author Ian Fleming. You follow the lead of Charles de Gaulle and Marc Chagall and flop at the Hôtel du Cap (paying in cash of course). As there are no publicists or personal assistants to keep rabble such as you away, you merrily snap photos and rub greasy, sun-screened elbows with the Hollywood celebrities who have made the Riviera their playground. There is Cary Grant and Alfred Hitchcock having a coffee; Yves Montand happily crooning to himself; Marlon Brando going for a stroll with his fiancé; Kirk Douglas and David Niven swapping roguish tales; 19-year-old Bridgette Bardot flaunting her firm flesh in a teeny bikini; Marcello Mastroianni looking on behind dark sunglasses; Robert Mitchum smoking grass; Gianni Agnelli, “the Rake of the Riviera”, flirts with Anita Ekberg, oozing sprezzatura. With all this nubile exposed flesh, sun and celebrity-spotting, a bracing restorative is called for, so you follow James Bond’s example in Casino Royale and order the fashionable and refreshing Americano. It has not been a bad day. 

        Celebrities’ love affair with the Cote d’Azure began in the 1920s. With the exclusive first-class sleeper, le Train Bleu, Brits and Parisians could zip to the Mediterranean in both luxury and speed. Early visitors included Charlie Chaplin, Winston Churchill, Coco Chanel, Somerset Maugham and Jean Cocteau. That wandering “lost generation” also washed up on Europe’s post-WWI-ravaged shores. The most notable being Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, who while in Cannes wrote much of The Great Gatsby. In the 1930s, after abdicating the British throne the Prince of Wales, Ms. Wallis Simpson and their pugs knew where to exile: the French Riviera. 

        It is in 1947 with the premier Cannes Film Fest that its beaches become epicenter. With the annual festival—the event to see and be seen—the Cote d’Azure becomes a resort for the rich, the beautiful and the paparazzi. Established stars arrive to flaunt it and scrappy upstarts endeavor to grab it. Nineteen forty seven is also the year that Louis Réard debuts the bikini, and with its decadent atmosphere and plentiful sun, Cannes is the perfect locale for this minute garment. And who better than Bardot to popularize the bikini? It has been said that she did more for France’s international trade balance than the entire French car industry. In Et Dieu…crea la femme (1956), the succès de scandale of the film made both her and the movie’s setting famous. Now the set dressing of St. Tropez had an even more enticing allure. Also in 1956 was the marriage of Grace Kelly to Prince Rainier of Monaco that an estimated 30 million watched on television.    

          Yet what largely introduced the privileged and decadent jet setters’ escapades to the hoi polloi was the 1960 release of Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita. Contrary to what Fellini was saying about Italy and modern times, the rest of the world saw only the glamour, the sex, the excitement, the clothing. Compare 1953’s Roman Holiday with 1960’s La Dolce Vita. Both movies won Best Costume Design Oscars, for Edith Head and Piero Gherardi, respectively. It was Gregory Peck as Joe Bradley versus Marcello Mastroianni playing Marcello Rubini. The later film makes conscious reference to the older when a hooker calls Rubini “Gregory Peck”. Both Joe Bradley and Marcello Rubini are journalists in Rome and both become a bit too intimate with the subjects they cover. Joe Bradley falls for Princess Ann and Rubini gets hot under the collar for movie bombshell Sylvia. But whereas Joe falls in love with the Princess and blows the assignment, Marcello plays it cool and delivers the goods. As the earliest Hollywood production filmed entirely in Italy, Peck in Roman Holiday gave Americans their first glimpse of post-war Rome. Later, Mastroianni in La Dolce Vita showed them an entirely different Rome and properly introduced the Italian, or Continental look. Suiting wise, it was Peck in a sack and Mastroianni in a stiletto. 

          Though La Dolce Vita was released seven years after Roman Holiday, their respective suit shapes were contemporaries. In fact, the ‘Italian’ look had existed for almost a decade when Roman Holiday hit the theatres. Peck in his American sack suit was quite unadventurous, its shape had remained mostly unaltered for decades. It was all about comfort and conservatism, a look meant to foster anonymity. Its loose, shapeless, “sack” jacket had natural, unpadded shoulders, and was usually a single-breasted, three-button, center back vent affair. With baggy trousers on the legs, the resulting boxy shape tended to swallow the male form. A cornerstone of Brooks Brothers and the “Ivy League” look, the shape did have attractive qualities, but next to la bella figura of La Dolce Vita, it looks painfully square. Composition credit for the Italian melody goes to tailors Caraceni, Carlo Palazi, Bruno de Angelis and most importantly, Brioni. In 1945, the maestro tailor Nazareno Fonticoli and the on-the-scene, mover and shaker socialite, Gaetano Savini, joined forces to launch an exclusive tailor shop on Rome’s via Barberini. Brioni introduced an entirely new silhouette to the pantheon of suiting with the Continental look. The cut was much more flattering; it accentuated the male figure rather than trying to disguise it.  With more pronounced shoulders on the shorter length jacket, it had a markedly slimmer cut throughout the chest and sleeves, giving the shirt cuff plenty of screen time. High notched lapels, a ventless back and flapless pockets further served to slim the figure. The trousers sat lower on the hips and clung more closely to the legs. It gave the individual a chance to be just that, to step out from the anonymous crowd of grey flannel men and exhibit some masculine sophistication. Marcello’s stiletto cuts open Peck’s sack, just as scissors cut paper. This suiting expression paved the way for the 1960s male peacock and decades later continued to influence designers like Thom Browne. 

        The Cote d’Azure is nothing if not colorful: the sky and sea, the buildings, the yachts dotting the harbor, the 300 annual days of sun that make everything sparkle like gold. Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall and Henri Matisse drew inspiration for their vibrant works from the Riviera. How depressing that the movies and snapshots of 1950s are in mundane black & white. We want Cary Grant, John Wayne, Douglas Fairbanks, Frank Sinatra and Marcello Mastroianni in color, dammit! 

         With the creation of Technicolor, movie audiences were given a startling jolt, just as the arrival of 2013’s collections will dispose of the drab shades of your winter wardrobe. The colors of Spring/Summer 2013 bring to life the hues of the French Riviera: the blues and greens of the sea and sky, the whites of the clouds, the pastel pinks, yellows and purples of the setting sun. If La Dolce Vita had been shot in color, the collections of Gucci, Salvatore Ferragamo, Prada, Louis Vuitton, Trussardi, Dolce & Gabbana, Paul Smith, Jil Sander and of course, Brioni, would fit perfectly on the jet setting characters. Our aforementioned stars were in control of themselves and their clothes. They were not afraid to adopt the slim-fitting Continental lines, and nor would they be bashful about wearing some vibrant color on their backs. 

         The colors depicted on the big screen in Technicolor were oversaturated and brighter than normal. Just as Technicolor was an idealized version of reality, so too are the hues of S/S 2013 a glamorized version of color. Their lively shades are just as eye-catching: you will appear brilliant against dull backgrounds, you will be transported back to the heyday of Riviera leisure. Now wearing a streamlined, lime green Gucci suit, sipping an Americano with Marcello, you are truly living “la Technicolor Dolce Vita”.