Sprezzatura: The Essentials and anything else you want to know/comment

[muelleran]

It is all a question of your upbringing and your background. I could never get it right. The more I try to dress well, the more I'll look stiff and cold like that:

 

[MrRogers]

sprezzatura works if you are a really good looking dude....

If you're not you just look disheveled

MrR

 

[RJman]

Originally Posted by MrRogers

sprezzatura works if you are a really good looking dude....

If you're not you just look disheveled
Would that be... Flussertura?

 

[lawyerdad]

Originally Posted by LabelKing

Oscar Wilde said something to the effect of women dressing as if in a whirlwind.
Probably not the first person I'd look to for advice on women.

 

[LabelKing]

Originally Posted by muelleran

It is all a question of your upbringing and your background. I could never get it right. The more I try to dress well, the more I'll look stiff and cold like that:

What about the Schongeisterei?

English has no words describing these concepts, only awkward phrases.

 

[LabelKing]

Originally Posted by lawyerdad

Probably not the first person I'd look to for advice on women.
Trust an aesthete for a discriminating eye.

 

[lawyerdad]

Originally Posted by LabelKing

Trust an aesthete for a discriminating eye.
If you like your women to be abstractions, sure.

 

[LabelKing]

Originally Posted by lawyerdad

If you like your women to be abstractions, sure.
It's a nice look.

 

[redcaimen]

Originally Posted by lawyerdad

If you like your women to be abstractions, sure.

+1. I think that gets to the heart of it.

 

[epa]

I think that the borderline between sprezzatura and ritardato can be quite subtle. As someone mentioned in another thread, item 9 listed by Soph ("Thin part of tie below top") may be more on the ritardato side.
I sometimes like to leave the thin part loose (that is, not held within the loop of the back side of the wide part); I hope this to lend a touch of sprezzatura to my look, allthough I fear that some people think that it is rather ritardato. Other people probably think that I do it just to show that my ties are Ferragamo ties. (I guess this is why some brands, like Ferragamo, Hermes and Loewe, also put the logo on the front of the thin part of the tie, instead of only on the back of the wide part).

 

[Nantucket Red]

Sprezzatura is not giving a damn what sprezzatura is.

 

[epa]

Originally Posted by Nantucket Red

Sprezzatura is not giving a damn what sprezzatura is.
I would suggest adding "...allthough secretly making sure not to look ritardato"

 

[Swann]

Can someone please post a link to the "How to be Italian" text.

 

[Freerider]

The essence of sprezzatura, the old money look, modest nonchalance etc. is a dicussion about rule-based behavior and behavior based on long experience. Evidently, sprezzatura etc. is based on long experience with certain aesthetic codes. This experience cracks necessity and provides a basis for a feel for the dressing game, for improvisation - for sprezzatura.

 

[Demeter]

I'd like to see if someone can follow the GQ list and not look like a clown.

This is akin to "The Reader's Digest definitive list to being witty."