There’s an Italian word that fashion writers have been using incorrectly for about fifteen years.
Sprezzatura (by Baldassare Castiglione). It translates, roughly, as the art of making difficult things look effertless. The appearance of not trying. The idea that showing effort was, itself, a kind of failure. A knight who made his swordsmanship look laboured wasn’t impressing anyone. The impression was the point.
Fashion picked it up and turned it into “throw a blazer over everything and look cool.” We all of a sudden gave up on trying with our outfits in fear we would look like we are trying to hard (!!!)
Effortless is passive. Sprezzatura is active. It takes tremendous effort to look like you took no effort (does that make sense??)
I’ve been thinking about this because I’ve noticed it’s something a certain kind of woman does without knowing she’s doing it.
Not the woman who’s “thrown something on” in the way magazines mean it, with all the carelessness of someone who is very aware of being watched. The other kind. The woman at the Saturday market who has actually tried to love what she is wearing. The woman on a Tuesday in something you’d describe to a friend as “overdressed” that is (and you would not be able to explain why) completely, correctly, perfect x
The Northern Rivers has more of these women than anywhere I’ve been. I don’t think it’s an accident. There’s something about living somewhere that produces a very specific kind of dressing. Honest without being austere. Being in love with our outfit without being called “Over-dressed”
Sprezzatura, basically. Without the Italian. Without, probably, the word at all.
Vacanza exists because of that woman. Because of what she already knows without knowing she knows it. We’re not trying to teach her anything. We’re just trying to make the clothes that already make sense to her.
T x