Style
Agnelli’s fashion sense stood out, even in a country like Italy, where dressing well and fashionably is generally perceived as very important. His style has inspired and influenced menswear throughout the years, in Italy and around the world. In his retirement speech, Milanese fashion designer Nino Cerruti named Agnelli as one of his biggest inspirations, amongst James Bond and John F. Kennedy. Esquire Magazine named Agnelli as one of five best dressed men in the history of the World.
Agnelli’s dress style was a combination of a foundation of classic suits, combined with eye-catching personal tricks. He had a large number of bespoke Caraceni suits, which were of very high quality and classic design, and yet had the signature Italian bravura. It was the accessories and the way they were worn that made Agnelli stand out as a fashionisto. He is known for wearing his wristwatch over his cuff, wearing his tie askew or wearing (fashionable) high brown hiking boots under a bespoke suit. All these tricks were carefully chosen in order to convey sprezzatura, the Italian art of making the difficult look easy. His outfits were scrupulously chosen to the last detail, yet the accessory choices appeared as errors, making it look as if he did not care or make an effort about the way he was dressed.
Apart from his dress sense, Agnelli’s homes were work of designers and looked like studies in elegant living. Additionally, he was interested in sailing, fast cars, Cresta tobogganing, skiing and horses. His grandsons and heirs to Fiat, John and Lapo Elkann, seem to have adopted their grandfather’s tradition of dressing, as they are both often observed dressed classically and flamboyantly at high-society venues.
Agnelli's nickname of "The Rake of the Riviera", inspired the classical menswear magazine The Rake.
Read more about this topic: Gianni Agnelli
Famous quotes containing the word style:
“I concluded that I was skilled, however poorly, at only one thing: marriage. And so I set about the business of selling myself and two children to some unsuspecting man who might think me a desirable second-hand mate, a man of good means and disposition willing to support another man’s children in some semblance of the style to which they were accustomed. My heart was not in the chase, but I was tired and there was no alternative. I could not afford freedom.”
—Barbara Howar (b. 1934)
“Switzerland is a small, steep country, much more up and down than sideways, and is all stuck over with large brown hotels built on the cuckoo clock style of architecture.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)
“The difference between style and taste is never easy to define, but style tends to be centered on the social, and taste upon the individual. Style then works along axes of similarity to identify group membership, to relate to the social order; taste works within style to differentiate and construct the individual. Style speaks about social factors such as class, age, and other more flexible, less definable social formations; taste talks of the individual inflection of the social.”
—John Fiske (b. 1939)