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“A GENTLEMAN’S WARDROBE<br />
MUST BE FULL OF SHIRTS.<br />
THESE ARE THE TRIUMPH<br />
OF MODERN LIFE.<br />
I HAVE SO MANy THAT I’VE<br />
LOST COUNT OF THE NUMBER.<br />
yOU MUST HAVE SO MANy<br />
THAT yOUR OWN GOOD TASTE<br />
SURPRISES yOU EVERy TIME<br />
AND yOU ARE AMAzED EVERy<br />
TIME yOU GET THEM OUT<br />
OF yOUR WARDROBE”.<br />
112<br />
again and take back the world of elegance. We have<br />
the history, tradition, style, intuition and beauty. Let’s<br />
learn how to sell it on every continent. But quality<br />
must be supreme. We’ve made Biella a centre for<br />
research into textiles and the relationship between<br />
textiles and health, denouncing the criminal use of<br />
azo dyes which cause skin tumours in consumers.<br />
Ours is a philosophy of timeless, guaranteed excellence.<br />
We can teach it to the world. It is the only way<br />
open to us. Save traditions so that they can be new<br />
markets for sophistication and definite values”. Between<br />
1990 and 2000 Barbera was universally recognised<br />
as a style guru and, to all intents and<br />
purposes, the most elegant man of those years. One<br />
day, John John, Kennedy’s favourite, called him to<br />
tell him that he had been for a visit to the White<br />
House and that never had such an elegant American<br />
entered the Oval Office. He was wearing clothes<br />
with Barbera’s brand name. “I understand that the<br />
clothing caste wants bulk sales. But this is how history<br />
is destroyed and, that way, we lose our sense of<br />
who we are. My teachers were my father for fabrics,<br />
Mario Pozzi, Consilvio’s son in law and Mario Caraceni<br />
for clothes, shirtmaker Vittorio Siniscalchi and<br />
for shoes Antonio Bentivegna, great names in Milanese<br />
and international tailoring. Today I mainly wear<br />
clothes that I’ve designed myself. When I was eighteen<br />
my father sent me to England to gain experi-<br />
ence in weaving and spinning. In Biella I studied<br />
combing and dyeing. Then I found out about the<br />
great transformations in fabric in Milan where they<br />
looked into your soul and sewed your true identity<br />
onto you. They knew how to look into your mind.<br />
That was how I understood that true elegance is not<br />
appearance but your true essence. One day, at the<br />
end of a visit to our company, an Australian wool<br />
maker said to me, amazed: “But we sold you virgin<br />
wool and not cashmere. What miracles have you<br />
performed?” This is what I mean by substance and<br />
the unique, exceptional Italian way. In defence of<br />
our product, however, we must learn from the<br />
Americans who write everything clearly on their la-<br />
bels. An unruly market is to nobody’s advantage. In<br />
1960, after seeing a photo of me dressed in Mulas in<br />
a Saxony over-checked three-piece suit in dual<br />
panel brown, Murray Pearlstein asked me to create<br />
a clothing range for him. I’d learnt something at the<br />
Milanese tailors. Today we’ve even got vintage fabrics.<br />
We conserve our wools like champagne in our<br />
Pianezze cellars keeping them there eight months<br />
in constant humidity because it has to regenerate<br />
there before it is woven. The 1911 reserve is dedicated<br />
to my father Carlo, honorary member of the<br />
Superfine Wool Producers, the most exclusive wool<br />
making club in the world. We don’t forget history”.<br />
www.lucianobarbera.com<br />
THE GREAT TRADITION<br />
CONTINUES: ABOVE luCiAno<br />
BARBERA’S GRANDSON.<br />
113