"Even in bad times, Italians dress up," Italian Vogue 's editor Franca Sozzani told me this week. Franca was in London for the opening of the V&A's latest fashion exhibition, "Italian Glamour", along with a host of her compatriots, from Stefano Gabbana and Domenico Dolce, Valentino and Angela and Rosita Missoni to Silvia Fendi and her jewellery-designing daughter Delfina Delettrez, and a strikingly baby-faced man called Matteo who turned out to be their Prime Minister.
Franca is not wrong. These are quite bad times right now, in Italy. And they still look a million euros. "Think of the places we have," Franca points out. "Capri, Roma, the spirit of la dolce vita… you can't not dress up." Again, too true. The ritual of la passegiata , which doesn't feel quite the same on a damp evening in Dungeness, practically forces Italians to take pains over their appearance.
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But in the Insta-mash-up era, is there a type of glamour that's still definably Italian? Alexandra Shulman, editor of British Vogue , thinks so. "People look different on the streets there. It's hard to pin down, but I think it comes down to them being more put together. They wear more stuff - the leather gloves, the right bag, the little scarf… when I'm in Paris, I feel almost compelled to wear monochrome. In Italy you can wear orange and it seems OK."
I was expecting more colour from the exhibition, frankly. The title's a bit of a misnomer: it could easily have been called "The History of Italian Fashion Since the Second World War", but perhaps that didn't sound sufficiently sexy. Even so, it's an interesting story. After the war, Italy was broke, and broken. Consequently, there's plenty of sober suiting. Maybe too much for thrill-seekers. Yet it's nearly always luxurious, although most of the fur has been omitted so as not to offend British sensibilities.
I was expecting more colour from the exhibition, frankly. The title's a bit of a misnomer: it could easily have been called "The History of Italian Fashion Since the Second World War", but perhaps that didn't sound sufficiently sexy. Even so, it's an interesting story. After the war, Italy was broke, and broken. Consequently, there's plenty of sober suiting. Maybe too much for thrill-seekers. Yet it's nearly always luxurious, although most of the fur has been omitted so as not to offend British sensibilities.
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