The made in Italy that made Italy

Once upon a time ago there was a bunch of people of all ages, generally speaking quite young, who decided that it was time to unify Italy. Flamed by words that, crossing barriers and frontiers inspired peaceful liberal revolutions in nations with a well set unitarian history, they equipped with good will, courage and the strenght of ideals, for Italy they took a great risk, the highest. This bunch of believers and probably a bit fou idealists actually made it. Their personal human roads of all of them should be told, but that's another story, or probably not. The dresses they were wearing, the red coats, symbol of the unification of Italy that is celebrating its 150th anniversary, are treasured with love in a tiny little museum in the town where the Garibaldinis suffered one of the worst defeats from the French, they would have soon after won in the very same place, victory that would have been the prelude to the Porta Pia breach and to the liberation of Rome from the excessive secular power of the pope. Those dissimilar uniforms, tailored by female hands in great secret, need a constant upkeep. We would love to know that, by virtue of the love for the homeland, some important name of Italian 'alta moda', while keeping up the name of the made in Italy worldwide, would decide to repair those textures so delicate and precious that seem to be mirroring the historical and social Italian texture, to preserve and enhance them, remembering that the unification was created by those red coats.

©2009.2021

A neapolitan turtle

Naples is indescribable, one of those cities impossible to understand, at least I could never understand Naples. It's there, apparently revealing in its wonder or in its horror and a moment after has already changed, seems different. You never know if it's the most technological avant-garde in Italy or if it's a Middle Eastern casbah, if it's the door to the New World or to Africa, sometimes I think that Naples is an artistic illusion. I think to the black sea, not because of dirt, the translucent black that can be found crystallized in the Lipari's obsidian or, obviously, between the waves dancing in front of the Vesuvio in a particular day, as if there were ordinary days in that city. I do not love Naples, I admit it, and I don't hate it, I just can't understand it and I won't probably ever understand it. But, side by side with the Eduardo's books, it winks, from my  closet, in the shape of a button on a jacket or of a small stylized turtle that apparently wants to walk and run. The small icon is obviously the symbol of Carpisa, a society that started to produce suitcases and purses,  likeable, with a simple and fashionable style at a reasonable price. The society was born under the shade of the Vesuvio and in a few years could generate very good revenues and obviously to build a factory a l'avant-garde, with nursey, internal gym and facilities that are probably to be found in the Silicon Valley or in some Northern European country. I will never understand Napoli.

©2010.2020