London calling - Letter from Milan (2)
Joe Fountain's stay in Milan gets better
Things have taken a decided turn for the better in week two of my stay here in Milan, which has now even been extended by a couple of days. The workload is still pretty intense, but I've had some more down-time to enjoy, including the unavoidable shopping spree and a few fabulous dinners. The sun is shining - if perhaps a bit too much for a city famed for its pollution - and with the menswear shows kicking off next Sunday, there's a lot of eye candy roaming the streets: Young skinny model boys doing the casting rounds, portfolios in hand. Boys please take note: The muscle bound Adonis seems to have disappeared off the fashion radar completely to be replaced by fey, reed like types not yet out of their teens. The few old-fashioned beauties I've seen look a bit, well, old-fashioned to be honest. We can all thank Mr Hedi Slimane for that!
The passing of Gianfranco Ferre - one of Milan's most important fashion designers - has, as you can imagine - been the week's favourite topic. He was a well-liked man, popular within the fashion scene and out of it, so there have been nothing but good things said about him. The same cannot be said of the reaction to the Pope's new Ten Driving Commandments, which - understandably - have been met by rage and ridicule from every single person I have spoken to. I wish I could print some of the words my driver has used in reaction to them, but sadly, I am sure they wouldn't make it past the editor, so I'll save him the effort.
Last night I was invited to an exhibition of paintings and sculpture by an artist/jewellery designer called Angela Pintaldi, held in the deconsecrated church of San Paolo Converso - one of the most splendid settings for an exhibition I have ever come across - especially appropriate to Pintaldi's work - antique crucifixes reset onto the most amazing chunks of raw rock crystals, oxidised slabs of stone and obsidian. If I could afford the six-figure price tags, believe me, I'd have bought at least one piece without hesitation. Sadly, I can't - though I've put them on my ever growing list of things to buy should I even win the National Lottery, together with the house in pine-covered hills of Ibiza, in which I am sure it would look quite sensational.
But the highlight of my week has been the arrival via a friend in the US of "Michael Tolliver Lives" Armistead Maupin's new addition to the Tales of the City series which I went through in one sitting on Sunday, sitting on the hotel's roof terrace, just underneath the spires of the Duomo. I was much younger and a lot more naïve when I was first introduced to Maupin's working by someone I had a short summer fling with (who turned out to be a lying, cheating rat) in 1985. I don't have the time to sit here and elaborate on the story - because it did get quite complicated - but I would thoroughly recommend that anyone who wants an insight into just how horrifying and out of touch with what is going on in the world today Josie Muscat and his repulsive National Alliance are, gets hold of the books. They're light enough to be enjoyed as you sit in the sun, but clever enough to teach you that the world today is made of all sorts of folk, some queer (in every sense of the word) and some not so much, and that in the end we're all human, regardless of race, sexuality and creed.
So thanks for the effort Josie, but we wouldn't want it any other way!
The passing of Gianfranco Ferre - one of Milan's most important fashion designers - has, as you can imagine - been the week's favourite topic. He was a well-liked man, popular within the fashion scene and out of it, so there have been nothing but good things said about him. The same cannot be said of the reaction to the Pope's new Ten Driving Commandments, which - understandably - have been met by rage and ridicule from every single person I have spoken to. I wish I could print some of the words my driver has used in reaction to them, but sadly, I am sure they wouldn't make it past the editor, so I'll save him the effort.
Last night I was invited to an exhibition of paintings and sculpture by an artist/jewellery designer called Angela Pintaldi, held in the deconsecrated church of San Paolo Converso - one of the most splendid settings for an exhibition I have ever come across - especially appropriate to Pintaldi's work - antique crucifixes reset onto the most amazing chunks of raw rock crystals, oxidised slabs of stone and obsidian. If I could afford the six-figure price tags, believe me, I'd have bought at least one piece without hesitation. Sadly, I can't - though I've put them on my ever growing list of things to buy should I even win the National Lottery, together with the house in pine-covered hills of Ibiza, in which I am sure it would look quite sensational.
But the highlight of my week has been the arrival via a friend in the US of "Michael Tolliver Lives" Armistead Maupin's new addition to the Tales of the City series which I went through in one sitting on Sunday, sitting on the hotel's roof terrace, just underneath the spires of the Duomo. I was much younger and a lot more naïve when I was first introduced to Maupin's working by someone I had a short summer fling with (who turned out to be a lying, cheating rat) in 1985. I don't have the time to sit here and elaborate on the story - because it did get quite complicated - but I would thoroughly recommend that anyone who wants an insight into just how horrifying and out of touch with what is going on in the world today Josie Muscat and his repulsive National Alliance are, gets hold of the books. They're light enough to be enjoyed as you sit in the sun, but clever enough to teach you that the world today is made of all sorts of folk, some queer (in every sense of the word) and some not so much, and that in the end we're all human, regardless of race, sexuality and creed.
So thanks for the effort Josie, but we wouldn't want it any other way!