Style. Elegance. Italy. The words form a perfect triumvirate, rather like a Neapolitan ice cream, or the red/green/white of the Italian flag itself. Yet, it seems the high-heeled boot is currently in the grip of a sartorial crisis of confidence.
Italian women – who include global icons of beauty such as Sophia Loren and Botticelli’s ‘Venus’ – have collectively agreed they need help. Hence the popularity of Chic in a Day, or Chic in un Giorno – a day-course which advises young Italian women (and a few men) how to wear heels, that it’s not a great idea to turn up at the office in torn jeans and why Bill Gates’ dressed-down look only works if you are (a) a geek and (b) a billionaire.
It’s rather an attractive idea and not just for those who are in their 20s. Unless you are a clothes obsessive or wealthy enough to employ a team of personal stylists, relaxed and imaginative clothes shopping is one of the first delights to fall at the seemingly endless steeplechase which is family life.
My own wardrobe exists on the tried-and-tested trinity of (a) keeping old favourites going for at least a decade; (b) lightning raids on voguish shops which sell everything from boots to jeans via coats; and (c) ill-advised ventures for ‘bargains’. I, therefore, now possess clothes that are old, ill-fitting or too smart. I attend important meetings in hotpants accessorised with weary shoulder-padded jumpers, or get baby puke on stylish suits, which can only be dry-cleaned by a shop that is in a suburb of Bury St Edmunds.
For myself – a working mother-of-four – the chance to focus on how to run a user-friendly and fashionable ‘capsule’ wardrobe cheaply and effectively seemed rather a wondrous idea.
The course is the invention of Marinella Calzona, former designer and now president of Moda & Modi, a Milan-based organisation expressly set up in 2004 with the purpose of upholding female style. One may have supposed Italian women might have inhaled stylishness with their first tender spoonful of risi e bisi, but this does not seem the case. Moda & Modi now conducts around 25 courses a year.
My class on the spirit of ‘chic-dom’ takes place in a hotel on the outskirts of Bologna. I arrive in a pale pinafore dress, which I prayed was suitably workable. At least, I had ironed it.
My classmates are all female and in their late 20s. I feel about a thousand years old in contrast but never mind. I comfort myself by realising I can always hide behind the disguise of being English. Some are in trainers, a few have acne, but most look well-groomed. Why have they each paid €120 (£86) for this course?
‘I don’t think I have a great idea of how to dress,’ whispers my neighbour, Theresa Fava, a 25-year-old languages graduate. ‘In Bologna, I see lots of women with style, but then you have the other side of the coin. Women who dress like… well, it’s too embarrassing to say…’
