"You may have the universe if I may have Italy."
Giuseppe Verdi
Vogue US 2006 (?)
Grace Coddington, Natalia Vodianova, Mario Testino.
This editorial is just too good not to share. Sure, it's all a huge cliche - the pigeons, the prada, the peach bellinis. But who says that cliche's can't be lovely? often, that's all that cliches are. Lovely, lovely, lovely.
Doesn't it make you yearn for baskets full of apricots and walking barefoot across the Via San Marco in a circle skirt and costume jewelry? I love Italy for it's voluptuous, full-bodied beauty. Italy is ripe, for me. That's the word i would use to describe it. Nothing is done in a half-baked way. Everything is full, rich, almost creamy in its vivdness.
Luscious.
I suppose it's because I always equate a place with its food, and then the sensation of that food with what to wear. In France the food is sophisticated, clever and delicious. In Italy the food is simple, rich and vivacious. Think about it, all those Italian staples - pizza, pasta, panna cotta - are so ripe and full of life. Tomatoes bursting with flavour, the tangy green of basil, plump rounds of oozing bocconcini, the wobbling mass of the most voluptuous panna cotta cream, lemons bursting with juice, the rising crusts of a floury pizza. That lusciousness is extravagance through and through. You can't be on a diet in Italy. (you certainly can't be gluten free in Italy). Who would want to miss those bowls of pasta, glistening with olive oil, or the cakes piled high with summer fruits?
The full skirts and ruffled shoulders of Italian dress simply mirror that aspect of their culture. Whenever i thinko of Italy i see thick tumbling locks of hair, hourglass figures and tomato red suede heels. It's tied up, of course, to Roman Holiday and Fellini and The talented mr Ripley - 50s-style sillhouettes and vespas and the like. But, then, it has some grounding in reality. I've never met an Italian who doesn't live life to the absolute fullest, whether it be through food, leisure or clothes. They are renowned for high quality, for luxury and glamour. But there is an earthy sensuality that pierces everything Italian. As if the leather of your gucci bag has just been tanned by grimy hand, or the dirt just been brushed from the stalks of your basilico. They are a people who, quite simply, know how to live, and love. And it's not just any kind of life, oh no. It's La Dolce Vita.
Here's the rub, though. Why can't real life be just as beautiful as the magazines, the movies, the 'magination? (nice alliteration). Don't answer that question.
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