it isn't impossible to imagine a museum in Italy mounting an exhibition devoted to British fashion.
After all, we did invent the suit and the diamond-patterned golf jumper, and I'd put money on us also having a hand in the onesie. But it would probably be quite a small museum, in a town only Ryanair or easyJet flies to. So probably not the Italian equivalent of London's Victoria and Albert Museum.
Italian style and Italian fashion, on the other hand, are bywords for luxury, elegance and sartorial brio, and an exhibition devoted to them could well fill the V&A - as indeed it does from today when The Glamour Of Italian Fashion opens there for a three-month run.
The show covers the period from 1945 to the present day and has on display clothes by such familiar names as Versace, Prada and Missoni, as well as photographs and memorabilia from galleries and fashion archives and collections. It also features examples of work by lesser-known houses such as menswear label Rubinacci, which has been run out of an atelier in Via Chiaia in Naples since 1930 and is revered among tailoring cognoscenti (that's Italian too, by the way) for the rounded and hand-cut pockets on its suits. These are known as "pignata" pockets, a fact worth remembering if you are the type to take pub quizzes seriously.
Wonderful and dazzlingly glamorous all this may be, but it begs the question: are the Italians just inherently more stylish than the British? Or, more troubling, are the British just less stylish than everybody else except the Germans, the Russians and the Yanks? And if so, where does that leave the Scots? OK, that's three questions. But they are worth asking, particularly given last week's news that Missoni is pulling its name from the five-star boutique hotel it has run in partnership in Edinburgh since 2009. Good news for the guys on the door, who no longer have to brave the Scottish sleet with only a zigzag-patterned kilt for protection, but bad news for the capital's reputation as a fashion hub, I feel.
Writing in the section of the V&A catalogue devoted to Italian menswear, fashion historian Christopher Breward addresses this question. It's a cliche, he thinks, to put Italian men on a fashion pedestal but he also admits that, like all cliches, it hints at an underlying truth - and one of some considerable vintage. "The assertion that men of Italian ancestry have held a special and highly exportable claim on the art of fine dressing has been made by succeeding authors and social commentators since the publication of Baldassare Castiglione's influential Book Of The Courtier in 1528."
Blimey, 1528! Back then, we Jocks were still trogging around in boots, non zigzag-patterned kilts and T-shirts printed with whatever the Gaelic is for "Keep Calm And Ceilidh On". Good gear for a hooley or a Six Nations match but hardly stylish. Perhaps if we'd worn a cashmere sweater draped over our collective shoulder instead of a rustled sheep, history would have judged us the arbiters of style, not the Italians. But somehow I doubt it.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article