Articles by: Eleonora Mazzucchi

In her usual fretful way my mother kept on reminding me to use a bathroom. She started this chant Tuesday morning when were an hour early for the train out of Penn Station, as the pamphlet she clutched warned, perhaps too alarmingly, once in D.C. there might not be anywhere to relieve oneself. As it turned out, the city abounded with port-a-potties, a skyline of them conjoined with the Capitol and Jefferson Monument. For an instant, taking in the blindingly bright, cold day, I had the impression of having landed in a bizarre political-themed amusement park. The effect was disorienting. Droves of people, uncertain of which road to take, moved away from the station, each covered in at least twelve layers of clothing—having evidently heeded the recommendation to keep warm—while vendors hawking Inauguration paraphernalia pushed through with their carts. They were, in terms of gleaning any information as to where to position oneself for an optimal view of the proceedings, utterly useless. In fact, when I asked one which direction the Mall was in he scratched his head in all sincerity and asked, “The closest shopping mall?” Another, selling dubious slangy t-shirts (“A Black President! Wutchu Think About Dat!?”), portly and in need of a good dentist, responded in a gruff Southern accent that he wasn’t from the area. It is difficult to say whether this is heartening news for our economy or not, but apparently some came from far and wide for the sole purpose of making a buck.

We made our way toward a 7^th street shortcut, off a tip from an overwhelmed and enervated police officer. When he gave directions he didn’t fail to add “Yeah, if you make it there”. He was visibly pained by the civil disorder that encircled him and something in his distracted, tortured eyes suggested he couldn’t wait to get back to writing up parking tickets.

As we followed the tide of roaming flocks up E street, a wide thoroughfare that yielded entrance to the event, a couple of things struck me: the first, a sizeable majority of our fellow Inauguration watchers, if not three quarters, were black. I had to ask myself why. Was this not a moment that belonged to all of us, did white people feel it was less important? Second was that Washington, an unattractive city that outside of its monuments offers no more than a sprawl of drably colored monoliths, looked far more appealing in its new topsy-turvy guise, with roads closed off to cars, red-white-and-blue banners and Obama’s image ubiquitous at every turn. The formerly solemn and powerful capital had become a populist one. A spirit of good will took hold, a common pulse, a sense of anticipation stirring within the people who, squinting toward the sky, followed the echo of helicopters. They knew they were on the cusp of something significant—dare I say change?

As it were, access to the Inauguration was all but refused to anyone who hadn’t camped out on the Mall in the middle of the night. But oddly invigorated by the cold, my mother and I were not discouraged. We stood behind one of the many gates that sealed off the Mall and contented ourselves with an audio version of the program, as did others—except for a nimble teenage boy, who, in a flash, jumped the gate and walked away casually, as though he had been on the other side the entire time. I watched him go and for a moment wished I had had the courage to do the same (naturally, if I'd been endowed with superhero high-jumping skills). Yet there was something to be said about those like us who watched through the grid: a mother feeding her boy a cold slice of pizza, a man and his elderly father. They were appropriately Norman Rockwell-like, ideal for the picture of America we no longer recognized in ourselves. It was part of the image Obama sought to resurrect, though in his Inaugural address he was saved not so much by use of compelling imagery as the orotund quality of his voice. The familiar, almost liturgical sound effaced the words it was meant to deliver—perhaps a blessing given the unusually clichéd historical references that were made. But a few phrases rose above the tangled speech: “To all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: Know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more. […]Our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.” It was the instance of definitive rupture with our all-too recent past, the closest we have heard to a promise of peace.

There were funnier moments too, ones worth relishing for their sheer displays of glee. In a hot crowded bar televising the passing of the torch from Bushes to Obamas, spectators laughed at a helpless, and clearly disgruntled, wheelchair-bound Cheney. They yelled “sayonara!” and waved goodbye to the former first couple, speedily flown away from their seat of power. Joy and relief had their place again.

As I remember walking away from this scene with my mother, rubbing our hands for warmth with the weather chillier and the sunlight dwindling, a silly story I heard through the grapevine comes to mind. A New York high society girl, fortunate enough to have had a ticket to the Inauguration, overslept that morning, ran her shower too long, and as a result, missed her seat outside. Instead she was invited to watch from the Senate, an exclusive perch reserved for tycoons and their political allies, not unsimilar to box seats at a stadium. When she returned to meet her friends at a luncheon she burst into tears, bemoaning the discomfort of the whole situation, the crowds, the attention singularly and devotionally paid to a black man who had become the first President of the United States. Her wails carried through the hall, all of this much to the horror of Obama wonks and supporters piling cold cheese and ham onto their plates. It made me grateful I had been outside in the crowd, and that even if I hadn’t been afforded the privilege of seeing the new President sworn in, I had felt his presence in the renewed, tenuous hope of those around me. I had been skeptical of this idea of change, and only a week has passed since Obama has been at the helm, but he is proving himself to be a man of swift and unswerving action, a man who makes good on his rousing proclamations.  

In the midst of economic turmoil and the repetitive, droning terminology that accompanies it—“credit crunch”, “layoffs”, “consumer morale”—the Italian Trade Commission is taking a proactive stance. Collaborating with the Madison Avenue Business Improvement District, the Commission (ICE) has organized an event whose aim is to emphasize the quality and uniqueness of Italian trademarks on Madison Avenue. Timed with the holiday gift-gift-giving season, a select group of attendees are given a tour through the fashion thoroughfare’s Italian retailers and doted on by the stores’ managers. The dual engagements, on December 13^th and December 20^th, are hosted in the lush Holiday Suite at the Hotel Plaza Athénée, at walking distance from all participating locations, including Armani, Beretta, Gucci, Paul & Shark and Zanotti. Maserati and Piaggio, maker of the signature Vespa moped, are also displaying some of their newest models outside the Italian fashion houses.

It is a bittersweet moment for buyers, one of financial concern but also willingness to restore hope during the holidays, and it is in this context that Aniello Musella, the Italian Trade Commission’s director, hopes to reach out to them. He underlines the reliability of Italian products, saying “It is important to create an opportunity to communicate with the consumer on the excellence of ‘Made in Italy’ brands. Even in this time of economic recession, quality, research and innovation continue to be the strong suits of Italian production.”

This couldn’t have been clearer when we participated in the initiative last Saturday. Not only did it cheer the spirit to amble along Madison Avenue, with its lights and oversized wreaths, walking into stores like Beretta and Paul & Shark, in full view of Maserati’s exquisitely curved cars and Vespa’s pastel-colored mopeds, struck a note of deep aesthetic pleasure. There was something soothing, one may remark with a trace of guilt, of being in the presence of goods of the highest order. Indeed Beretta, the renowned gun manufacturer and outdoors wear label (founded in the 1500’s, possibly the world’s oldest family-owned business), exuded old-world opulence with a store filled with high mahogany shelves, soft lighting, stacks of cashmere apparel and display cases, one of which contained Ernest Hemingway’s original Beretta rifle. Robert Booz, the International Director of Beretta Galleries, remarked that his company was able to weather the recession because of its base of highly loyal customers. He added, “With manufacturing now diversified across the globe, like in the Far East and other parts of Europe, the ‘Made in Italy’ label is more important than ever, because customers know and trust that.”

We spoke with a few more of the event’s organizers and participants, beginning with Aniello Musella, to get a diagnosis on the state of Italian luxury brands. We got a glimpse into what the damage has been and how in many cases, major Italian industries are hopeful.

Mr. Musella, are Italian high-end industries suffering just as much as the rest?

“Everyone from Gucci to Louis Vuitton is suffering. The demand for mid to high-end products has decreased. The big handbag boom that fashion industries were enjoying in the last four of five years has come to a halt because buyers just aren’t able to sustain the same purchasing capability.”

This is obviously a moment of economic paralysis for the consumer. What’s needed to get people buying again, to help them feel motivated?

“Certainly in the U.S. the issue is credit availability. The American consumer has always done his or her buying with credit cards, with credit lines that had been made more and more open, and allowing for a diverse range of purchases. This credit is no longer available, and that’s the most critical element. The consumer also needs to have faith in the prospect of economic growth, the stability of the job market and of salaries.”

“From a psychological standpoint, Obama’s election has generated many expectations for a better future. The government staff that the president-elect is putting together is of the highest level. There are plans for strong economic intervention and stimulus, and with these a way out of this negative economic cycle is in sight.”

Simonluca Dettori, ICE’s Deputy Trade Commissioner who was instrumental in the event’s organization, also weighed in. 

“It started through our contact with the Madison Avenue association, with whom we’ve worked in the past, in 2003 and 2004. We wanted to focus attention on sales during the Christmas period. After a quick discussion we involved Maserati and Piaggio so as to synergize our efforts, emphasize Italian brands and what in the U.S. is seen as ‘Italian lifestyle’. We managed to pull it off in a few weeks. ICE was not actually involved in the selection of which specific Italian stores to involve, that was an internal Madison Avenue question.”

So what have been the major difficulties for Italian brands in the U.S. during this time?

“More than anything, naturally, people are buying less than in the past. There was a slight purchase increase during Thanksgiving, which was unexpectedly positive, but in light of major discount sales that have been going on— of up to 60 or 70%—we’re afraid that doesn’t mean much in terms of revenue. We won’t really know how bad things are until a couple of months from now, when the whole season will be financially assessed, but in general we fear that profit margins have pretty much been slashed.”

What do you think is the ray of light in all this, the hopefulness in these difficult economic times?

“Recent actions taken on the American economy, and the upcoming Obama presidency, should have a positive psychological effect. These could really help with a certain group of consumers that quite frankly have the means to spend but are suffering from low morale and need to be psychologically uplifted.”

We also spoke with Andrea Soriani, the Director of Brand Marketing for Maserati in North America, to understand how his business is coping with tough times.

Why did Maserati feel it was important to partake in today’s event?

“For us it’s a great opportunity to take our products out of what is primarily a showroom context. Our clientele loves Italian products; they have a thorough appreciation of Italian design, so putting our cars on Madison Avenue, where a majority of the stores are Italian, is like having the perfect store window. This also a great application of—a concept that is often talked about but rarely practiced—an “Italian system”, a concrete marketing technique.”

Do you think consumers still have faith in the Italian product?

“They certainly do. The problem is really this economic crisis, and let’s call it what it is, this recession—a term we fear but that we have to confront. Even a buyer who’s in the market for one of our products delays his decisive purchasing moment, so our challenge is really in presenting the product, in making him fall in love with it.”

In some of the latest news, several Lamborghini dealerships have been forced to close in the Los Angeles area, so more specifically, the problem probably lies less with the Italian-made product than with the ultra-luxury product.

“I can’t really comment on my competitors’ affairs, but I think the issue in L.A. had more to do with the dealerships’ owners than with the brand as a whole. That being said, this crisis is widespread. Even low-end distributors like Target and Wal-Mart have seen some sharp sales declines. A niche product, like a Maserati, in a way adheres to different rules and standards. But many of our clients are people who worked in finance, in banks and insurance companies, and those are the sectors that have been hit the hardest. I also have to add though, that because a Maserati is such a specific item, a product that entails heavy customization in advance, we’ve done better than our competitors because our clients, so far, have ultimately not reneged on the purchase.”

“I think the consumer will be wiser, more mature. But also the products will have had the opportunity to improve in terms of quality and appeal, especially Italian products, which have never skimmed on quality. In the long-term I think this a strategy will be vindicated.”

Our final encounter was at Paul & Shark, the nautical brand we were frankly surprised to hear was of Italian origin. The Sales Associate we spoke with there, Jessica Capurro, emphatically said that if all the Italian stores on Madison Avenue were better organized and united in a common front, engaged in common advertising, they would all have a better chance of overcoming the economic crisis. So perhaps the key to surviving a brutal American market is sticking together. ICE’s one-of-a-kind effort to galvanize Italian industries is a good first step.

The Cambridge professor W.R. Inge once remarked that “the nations which have put mankind and posterity in their debt have been small states: Israel, Athens, Florence, Elizabethan England.” Indeed there is some small debt, or at least homage, to be paid to Florence for its contributions—it gave us the Renaissance, a blueprint for modern banking, the Italian language. It is difficult for a city of such copious historic accomplishments not to simply rest on its laurels, to offer its visitors something that piques interest anew and to become once again, in some measure, the voice of Italian progress. But leaders of Florentine institutions attempted to do just that when they gathered at New York’s Italian Cultural Institute this past week to reveal upcoming and ongoing initiatives, a presentation they called “Florence: A New Renaissance”.  

Nicoletta Maraschio, the Director of the Accademia della Crusca (a leading establishment for research and promotion of Italian based, appropriately enough, in Florence), placed much-needed emphasis on the importance of the Italian language. She stirred the audience’s collective sentiment when she called for greater efforts to “invest in the knowledge of Italian”, as is done across Europe with German, Spanish, and of course, English. Her dose of hard reality, a reminder that Italy is not meeting the high demand for Italian in the world, not allocating enough resources to that end, prompted some listeners to yell “brava!”. Among some of her most interesting proposals to put Florence, and Italian, back on the map was “Lingue in piazza” (“Languages in the Piazza”), an open-air event for the exchange of world languages, with readings and discussions between academics. The Italian Cultural Institute’s director, Renato Miracco, would echo her concerns, saying we had to find “new ways of discovering and teaching Italian”.

Florence’s major cultural venues are also revamping their image with exhibits that offer fresh perspectives on age-old themes. The Palazzo Strozzi Foundation is putting on a show entitled “Women in Power: Caterina and Maria de’Medici”, while the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino Theater (Florence’s opera house) opens every season with a progressive theme—last year’s was “Rebel Women”, this year’s is “The Dark Side”. Paolo Caretti, Vice President of the Maggio Musicale Foundation, was present to announce his institute’s program, including the world premiere of a new opera by Matteo D’Amico called “Patto di sangue”.

A few of the conference’s most unexpected guests were American sculptor Greg Wyatt, who has had a long-standing relationship with Florence and whose work will be shown there again in 2009, and a couple of his Italian students. Wyatt (his magnificent sculpture is prominently displayed outside the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, where he is also sculptor-in-residence) has spearheaded an exchange program out of Florence for distinguished art students, both from the U.S. and Italy. A beneficiary of this relatively new and fruitful exchange was Wyatt’s young Florentine student, who called his experience in the U.S. “awesome”, and gave a spirited shout-out to one of his professors.

And further illustrating that Florence's gifted contemporary artists can also be experienced from here, it was announced that the National Arts Club in Gramercy Park has an exhibition of Antonio Lo Pinto underway (Ocotber 5^th-17^th). The Catania-born sculptor, who has transitioned from minimalism to his own avant-garde styles, studied at l’Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze and is a professor at l’Istituto d’Arte di Porta Romana in Florence.

The “New Renaissance” speakers were brought together by Dario Nardella, President of the Commission of Cultural Affairs. He began his speech by expressing pride and joy in the interest Americans have shown for Florence—it is in point of fact the Italian destination American tourists visit most. Implicit in his words was the hope that this conference would prove that his city was still one of innovation, still capable of sparking intellectual debate, producing great art, and of inspiring those who pass through it.

On paper Follieri seems highly respectable. As a developer and chairman of the Follieri Group, the company he runs with his father, he isn’t exactly the bad seed your mother told you to steer clear of. Ever since his arrival in the U.S. in 2003 he has made a name for himself, both in the business world and society pages. But because his financial dealings revealed themselves to be nothing but an embarrassing series of empty promises, notably the ones for which he was carted off to jail, his biggest success to date has been bagging the milky-complexioned Ms. Hathaway.

Follieri might have presented himself well, always in a suit and exuding the confidence of an Italian Mr. Big. Not quite what one would call handsome (despite looking a bit like a cross between David Duchovny and Zach Braff, a flaccid neck, rotund frame and unremarkable features do not handsome make), he had managed to charm a pretty actress who became his permanent arm candy. When mumblings of his shady business practices surfaced a year and a half ago, Hathaway, who was long the smiling, virginal face of a Disney franchise, also helped lend him an air of legitimacy. The skeptic in me was temporarily appeased when I thought, if Anne Hathaway wants to be seen with this sleazebag, he must have some redeeming qualities… Right?

As it turns out, not so much. He was arrested for fraud and money laundering last week, the culmination of a complicated web of lies he told over many years. Follieri had parlayed supposed Vatican connections into profitable business relationships with, among others, the California billionaire Ron Burkle. They turned out to be profitable only for Mr. Follieri. He squandered funds from investors, including over $1 million from Burkle, for personal use—or more specifically for a lavish lifestyle complete with, as the court complaint stated, private jets, gifts for Hathaway, a nearly $40, 000 a month apartment in Manhattan, vacations and “dog-walking services”. Those must have been some Grade A, trained-in-the-Dr.Doolittle-school-of-animal-psychology dog-walkers (what did they offer, to escort pets on fur-lined, diamond-studded rick shaws?).   

Originally, Follieri ingratiated himself into the inner-circles of powers through Doug Band, a close aide to Bill Clinton. Clinton in turn, is a personal friend of Burkle’s and an adviser to his Yucaipa investment company. The Italian entrpreneur befriended both Clinton and Burkle, even pledging $50 million to the Clinton Global Initiative (the pledge money never materialized). Yucaipa would later put down $55 million for an investment venture with Follieri, on the grounds that he could secure church properties on the cheap. Follieri had led all his American investors to believe that he was the Vatcian’s financial officer, with an inside track to its affairs, when in fact his ties to the institution were flimsy and contrived. He had paid some Vatican administrators, and the relative of a former Vatican official, to create the appearance of connections. This is the most significant charge against him.

All of this makes me wonder if this isn’t perhaps the same road Follieri took, at least in part, to his now ex-girlfriend’s heart. Seeing as Anne Hathaway could have had her pick of the glietterati litter and instead chose our man Follieri, settling down with a nice Catholic boy might have been exactly what drew her to the native of San Giovanni Rotondo. Unusual as it may seem to pick a significant other for his “Catholic-ness”, the actress has always wanted to be close to the Church. Raised in a stringently Catholic family, up until she was fifteen she dreamed of being a nun. She didn’t abandon her aspirations to the ascetic life for lack of devotion, but because when she discovered her older brother was gay, she wanted to dissociate herself from a gay-bashing institution—which she is, however, still loath to speak ill of. When she recently stated that most of her friends are gay men, she was asked if it made her uncomfortable that her fiancé was closely linked to the Vatican. She responded by saying that she’d “rather not comment on the Church. They’ve done wonderful deeds all over the world”.

As for her romantic life, she once spoke in a tone that betrayed a certain girlishness and wide-eyed naiveté: “Kindness is really important to me in finding my own prince—so are patience and a sense of humor. Without those qualities he’s no Prince Charming!” Hathaway had always spoken gushingly about Follieri, even up until a month ago, and was often pictured clinging to him and looking very much in love, but there is no amount of sense of humor, or willful blindness, she could muster to get over the scandals that riddled his professional life. And she was no quitter: she plodded through months of humiliation, not least from cast mate Kate Hudson who, according to Star magazine, called Follieri a “loser” back in April when he was arrested for bouncing a $215, 000 check. Hathaway finally chucked her Princess Diary niceties, faced reality and dumped him three weeks ago.

Anne Hathaway wasn’t the first girl, and won’t be the last, to be beguiled by a naughty Italian. But Hathaway was duped. My question is, what’s their excuse?

Maybe if you asked them, they’d say it was well worth the wild ride.