byJAY KOS F[ood]ash•ion

ITALY ITALY

ITALY

byJAY KOS

#13 | February 2011

ITALY

ITALYAll photographs by ERICA SIMONE

Wintertime is my favorite season to visit Italy. Mainly because during this time, its streets are void of unstylish sweatsuit-wearing American tourists looking for the Gucci store just to buy a pair of sunglasses, but also because I love to walk and bike through its cities’ streets, which can sometimes get a little too hot in the summer. There’s nothing more exciting than getting lost on a bike in the winding streets of Florence or Mi-lan to discover small shops specializing in pasta or leather, shoes or chocolate. These little artisans (who are unfortu-nately slowly disappearing) are what make Italy — Italy.

Many of the old time Florentine shops have been replaced with Ameri-can chains such as the Disney Store or American Apparel, making it more and more diff icult to f ind the old world charm Florence once knew. Having said that, they do still exist and some of the best ones have out stood the f ight. My f irst stop in Florence is usually to ‘Migone’, an amazing family-run chocolatier in the

center of town, who make THE best dark chocolate anywhere — it’s even better than my favorite chocolate from Paris. Italian chocolate is quite different from French or Belgian chocolate because it tends to be more bitter and less creamy: I think this is what I love most about it. Being a chocoholic, there isn’t one day of the week that passes by without savor-ing a piece (or eight) of dark chocolate.

The food in Italy is by far some of the f inest cuisine in the world. Lost on a hill, an hour and a half drive outside of Flor-ence in Monte Pescia, sits a traditional family-run restaurant visited by the f in-est chefs around the world: ‘Ristorante Monte Pescia’. This restaurant is TOTAL-LY AMAZING, but unfortunately I had to enjoy most of it through the looks on my friends’ faces at the table, since I don’t eat meat or fried food and the main spe-cialties there are f ire-grilled steak and fried meats and vegetables, panfried in their property’s own homemade olive oil. A far cry from KFC, the fried rabbit, chicken, artichoke hearts and potatoes

are TO DIE FOR... at least that’s what everyone else said. Once dipped into egg and f lower, the meat or vegetables are simply fried on low in the f inest, purest olive oil I’ve ever tasted. This specialty, along with the beautiful twinkling vista at night makes the hike up to the restaurant feel like a modest jog. If you’re in the neighborhood and plan-ning on spending an evening there, just make sure to book way in advance!

Besides all the amazing food and shopping, I actually came to Florence to visit Pitti Uomo, the menswear show that houses exhibitors from all over the world. I go to check out what’s happening in the industry and to get inspiration, however I’ve found the fashion in Italy and at Pitti Uomo this year to be a littler “safer” than what I’m typi-cally drawn to. I did manage to f ind an amazing sock manufacturer who is producing a sort of sweater for the foot, along with a travel cashmere knit blazer in both single and double breasted, sure to be a necessity in everyone’s suitcase when traveling.

One evening, we hailed the craziest taxi I’ve ever been in. Decked from the inside out in cartoons, f lowers, candy and toys, the cab’s driver was a smiley blond woman wearing a large hat with f lowers coming out of it. The inside of the cab was like Dis-neyland on PCP and as my photographer, Erica, was taking photos of it all, the driver was excitingly blowing bubbles towards the back. Of course we had to ask what was going on! The woman explained that the taxi had originally belonged to her husband who died of cancer at the age of 40. She is apparently the only driver in Florence given permission to decorate her car. She is very proud of her “happy love taxi” and wills to drive any adult or child with cancer to their cancer treatments for free.

Ok, now back to food. The owner of the Italian factory who produces my suits was nice enough to take me to Il Lattini: a famous Florentine favorite you absolutely need to go to with an appe-tite for a small village. As the meats, pas-tas, cheeses and wine kept generously coming, the laughs at the table got loud-er and louder, eventually infecting other tables in the room. The night was quite interesting — possibly because the Rus-sians at our table traditionally decided to cheers every ten minutes, and polite-old-me just had to take sips of wine at every chime of the glasses (or maybe because I didn’t want to insult the KGB and get shot). But the thing is, I… don’t drink alcohol, hardly ever! And so, four glasses of wine and a shot of Unicum lat-er, I ended up completely drunk sitting down on the side of the street crack-ing up with the matriarch of Italian suit making, the owner of the factory.

After Florence, Erica and I drove to Milan, stopping in Modena at a restau-rant on the side of the highway where I broke down and had homemade pas-ta. A three-story building from the 19th century, the restaurant looked like some sort of castle, with a big f ire place (jeal-ously) watching us eat. The food was simple, traditional, and sensational.

Milan is a great place to get the pulse of fashion. Typically, I leave Italy precisely inf luenced by color and f it, which has al-ways been the core concept of my brand. Americans seem to be so scared of color and don’t really know how to use it. The Italians totally embrace color and know how to make it work in the f it.

An important part of the trip was going to visit a hat factory two hours outside of Milan, that has been making hats since 1862. The process of hat-mak-ing is truly magical and getting to see each step of production is quite an in-teresting experience. First, the fur of the beaver or hare becomes felt and is then spun and watered down in a machine that dates back to the beginning of the factory. This then forms a felt cone, which goes through another twelve steps or so of drying, shaping, smoothing and tai-loring. I love visiting this factory, it feels as if you’re going back in time. I could spend a week there just making hats (as long as I don’t try their espresso machine again - that could very well have been the worst coffee I’ve ever tasted).

Italian food - as good as it is - can get tiring sometimes, especially for a raw food junky like me, so I made my tradi-tional trip to Nobu for some sashimi. Ev-ery time I go there, I contemplate steal-ing the pepper dispenser they put on the table, because it’s just… so cool. Note to self: do not mention that to 25 year-old traveling photographers who owe you a birthday gift, because when we left the restaurant, Erica grinned and pulled the pepper shaker out of her bag. I was glad

“Milan is a great place to get the pulse of fashion”

that I hadn’t mentioned that I liked the chairs... All in all, thank you Erica, I’m very happy for my stolen bir thday gift - I’ve always wanted one. And I hope that if Nobu reads this, they’ll realize that, although I was sor t of involved in the crime - it was not my idea. I also plan on bringing it back one day... just not right now.

For this month’s dish, I used the pep-per dispenser to help spice up a bowl of bow tie pasta with tomato and buffalo

mozzarella. This is a dish that “Tredici Gob-bi” in Florence has perfected, and so have I. The secret is to only use tomato paste and use leftover water from the under-cooked pasta and to then f inish cooking it in the paste and the water. I prefer when sauce sticks to the pasta. And in using this method, that is best achieved. Taste and you will see…

We also celebrate this month’s blog with having had a fabulous time dressing the wonderful actor, Alan Cumming.

Alan Cumming

Tweed Jacket

Pink Suede Vest

Caramel Ski Pants

Monkey Scarf

Featured GuestAlan Cumming dressed in...