Although I appreciate smartness of attire, I do not usually pay attention to the perfection, or lack thereof, with which people’s clothes are cut.
One evening however, during a reception in a house in Milan, I met a man of the apparent age of forty who literally shone on account of the beauty, definitive and pure, of his suit.
I do not know who he was, it was the first time I had seen him, and at the introduction, as it always happens, it was impossible to catch his name. Anyway at a certain point of the evening I found myself next to him and we began to talk. He seemed a genial and civil man, yet with an aura of sadness. Perhaps with exaggerated liberty – may God have restrained me – I paid him my compliments for his elegance and I even dared to ask him who his tailor was.
The man gave me a strange smirk, as if he were expecting the question.
“Almost nobody knows him” he said “but he’s a real craftsman. And he works only when he fancies it. For a few initiates.”
“So that I…”
“Oh, try, try. His name’s Corticella, Alfonso Corticella, via Ferrara 17.”
“He must be expensive, I imagine.”