The Shirt Maker

Last year during my Italian retreat (my fancy name for three weeks of R&R in Italy) I used Milan as my starting point and consequently my end point for the adventure.  For those of you that haven’t been to Milan it truly rivals Paris for the fashion and sense of style.  The streets are laden with every high end brand know to man…you name it, its there somewhere. 

I spent three days in Milan absorbing the history and observing the fashion, it was a lesson how to look stylish no matter what time of day or night – male and female were always beautifully and impeccably dressed.   Now I’ve never been one to be on the cutting edge of fashion…(seriously – that’s your outside voice!) J but after a few short minutes standing in the streets of Milan I indeed felt rather frumpy. 

Then and there I decided to begin the reinvention of my image, what better place than Milan to get my sense of style, although I wasn't truly sure it was possible.   For those of you that know me also know that I can be rather driven and anal about something that I really want, so with a rather foggy sense of what "look" I wanted I dove in.

Milan - the fashion capital of the
world! 

Wandering the fashion district it became rather apparent that I needed help to shape my new image so whenever possible I would ask for assistance in my rather poorly structured and broken pidgin Italian.   Most of the people were very helpful, even in the high-end stores (I guess there is a recession on after all so that helps!), but most spoke enough English and I had enough Italian words to somehow understand each other.

My first day was a bit of a bust with not a single purchase to my name, but as I traipsed back to the hotel across town late in the afternoon I could see past the need for visible gains on day one toward my objective.   I was clearly taking it all in and had a pretty good sense of what I liked and what I didn’t particularly fancy.   Sometimes it looked better on the mannequin than on me or it was just too "out there" even for me.   Sometimes no matter how much you want it to look good it just doesn't.  I found that simple acceptance and quickly moving on was the best policy - to conserve time and effort.

Day two dawned with me taking a morning stroll to “Piazzale Loreto” to check out one of Milan’s most famous locations.   Give up???   It was in this Piazza where on April 29^th 1945 the bodies of Benito Mussolini, his mistress Carla Petacci and a number of other high-ranking Italian fascists were hung up for all to see. 

Today however, its part of a busy intersection so impossible to see anything of note except for a small parkette and a statue for the 15 partisans that were executed in the Piazza the year before Mussolini.   So interesting to stroll through such recent history, but Europe is chock full of this stuff and after a while you can become rather blasé...

Anyway, back to the story at hand – my fashion education!   I definitely wanted to go to the Hugo Boss store as I generally found that the clothes fit reasonably well, but as I browsed nothing really caught my interest…   I was starting to doubt whether I’d actually find anything of note, so as I exited the store I turned left (for no particular reason). 

Vittorio Marchesi store front - Milan

Right next to the Hugo store was a store with the words Vittorio Marchesi –  embossed above the glass doorway.  It was a little store, some might say a "hole in the wall" type of store although in this case it was very upmarket and fashionable, it was small.

Perhaps it was the shelves of brightly colored shirts that caught my eye, but stepping over the threshold into the store was quite an experience….   Without so much as a conversation I was being told to go try on a shirt, yes the one that had been thrust into my hands.  You see I had been visually sized up within seconds of entering the store by the very experienced store associate.  Interesting approach I thought - it wasn't an offer to try on the shirt it was a direct order!

Louisa had a wonderful mastery of languages, which was evident during my time in the store as she effortlessly crossed back and forth into Italian, Spanish, French and English depending on the prospective customer or regular who came in to visit.

The shirt she had thrust into my hands fit me like a glove!   Unbelievable I thought to myself…   For the next hour we discussed every aspect of what I was looking for in a shirt – fabric, shirt design, patterns vs. non-patterns, cuffs, collars, buttons vs. snaps…yes, a rather exhaustive process but one that I’d never really thought about until I’d been fully immersed in it.

As I checked my watch I was astounded to see that a full hour had gone but I’d yet to see an actual shirt that I could buy.   The only measurement she made was to validate my neck size as we disagreed on what it was – yes, she knew better than me on that front as well!   Bugger.....

With all this information swimming in her head she excused herself and exited via a circular staircase in the back of the store that went up to the second story.   For the next five minutes she bustled around upstairs, opening draws and cupboards, then banging them closed, muttering to herself as she went.  From time to time she would call down to me that she was almost done and to remain patient.

Gorgeous selection - but you can see how small the store is... 

She finally descended the stairs with her arms overflowing with shirts.   She began to lay them out before me and asked “how many would you like – all of these shirts are hand made and will fit you perfectly”.    I was amazed as each one of them fit the specifications of what we had discussed in all the various combinations.

I stood there with my mouth open (hoping that it wasn’t too obvious) – it was like being in a candy store – sooooooo many choices, so little euros to spend!    I asked about the pricing (strangely this hadn’t been a topic of conversation in the hour we’d spent) J 

Each shirt was priced at €80.00 which is about $100 CAD, so about half the price for a similar shirt in Toronto at Harry Rosen…nice!

I could have purchased each and everyone, but for once I showed a little (very little) self-restraint and only chose three.  

Now, my scathingly brilliant idea is to fly to Milan for the weekend (using flight and hotel points), buy a bunch of shirts, soak up a little of my second favorite culture (sorry Australia always wins out!) and be ahead of the game in terms of overall cost vs. if I brought them locally.  

Wow – now that’s a business model I could live with J