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Daily Mail
22-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
ALEXANDRA SHULMAN'S NOTEBOOK: Why I give short shrift to men in their shorts
When I edited the men's magazine GQ in the early 1990s, I commissioned a piece on the delightful sight of girls in their summer dresses. I don't know whether it'd be politically correct enough to run with today, but the idea was sparked by a man I knew who told me how much he looked forward to that moment when the dresses would suddenly appear on every street in all their wafting, colourful prettiness. These days, the hot weather instead brings out the shorts in many of us – and not with very flattering results. The Italian fashion brand Max Mara last week opened its show with a model wearing the briefest of shorts, inspired by Italian actress Silvana Mangano in a 1949 film. On Silvana, a slender beauty accessorised by immaculate hair and make-up, they looked glamorous. But that's not the way shorts are making their appearance at the local Sainsbury's. It's almost impossible to look chic in them. There are a few people – hands up, Alexa Chung – who appear gazelle-like, but shorts do few of us any favours. This summer there's a trend for women in culottes, which strike me as the worst of both worlds – like a pair of childish trousers pretending to be shorts. And as for men in shorts? I don't know when it became generally acceptable for men to wear them around the city, but it's a terrible look. Possibly, like so many things, the blame lies with that first Covid summer when we were confined to home with peerless blue skies. But we're not in lockdown now. And while shorts are fine on holiday, in the garden or on the sports field, there's something intrinsically slobby about bare-legged men. I think shorts on anyone of either sex over the age of 12 should be banned on public transport. Particularly on planes. As for vests… imprisonment. Even if you're Harry Styles. Usually I'd say it's OK to wear anything so long as you're comfortable. But there are exceptions to any rule. Incidentally, I happen to be wearing a pair of shorts right now. Food for thought in a futuristic world Communal tables have always struck me as a nightmare. So I've never understood the appeal in clubs, where who you dine with is pot luck. But there's a first time for everything. The other night I found myself at one of those long tables in an old-school London club. The man next to me was extremely companionable and spent much of his meal chatting to me. He was scornful about the lifespan of journalism in this AI world. Journalists, in his opinion, are already toast. When he asked what I'd be writing this week and discovered I hadn't yet decided, he suggested AI should write this Notebook. The following morning, I woke to find him demonstrating his point over WhatsApp, where he'd sent me an AI column under the title What Shall We Do With All This Time. In brief, the column suggested that since we are all going to live to 120, we should become university students studying Sanskrit in our 70s and ceramicists in our 90s. Serial monogamy – going from one committed relationship to another – would become the norm. Naturally, I didn't think the AI contribution captured my voice, but I had to admit it was reasonably interesting. Though not nearly as interesting as what my dinner companion did for a living (which I am not at liberty to divulge). All I'll say is that he was a thoroughly intriguing and teensy bit Machiavellian character, operating levers of power in worlds I would never usually come across. It's certainly changed my views on the possibilities offered by communal dining. And I doubt this piece will change his view on journalists. MI6's new C has stars in those eyes Pictures of Blaise Metreweli, the new and first female head of MI6, show her as a cool, gimlet-eyed beauty who's oven-ready to be played by Cate Blanchett on the big screen. Female spooks are endlessly fascinating, and I can't wait for the biopic. I'm such a busy bee in the morning sun In this wonderful weather, the early mornings are heavenly; the shimmering sunshine makes it so easy to get a good start on the day. I was feeling rather smug about this – watering the pots, dealing with some personal admin and making chicken stock before 7am – when my boyfriend wandered down. Bleary-eyed and critical of what he regarded as an unnecessary amount of early-morning activity, he was having none of my smugness. 'Did you not,' he asked (surely one of the most annoying phrases in the English language), 'read that article in the Daily Mail the other day saying that it was beneficial for your health to spend time doing nothing?' Will Enfield be the Bel-Air of our era? Southwark's not my favourite part of London. But the Romans felt differently about it. Look at the amazing mosaics and frescoes of a large villa unearthed by archaeologists. From their discoveries, experts have concluded that Southwark would have been an upmarket suburb in Roman times. They even compared it to Beverly Hills in Los Angeles. How might London's current suburbs be regarded in another 1,500 years, when the remnants of today's homes are dug up, I wonder. Will Hillingdon, or perhaps Enfield, be looked back on as the Bel-Air of the times? Wine does NOT belong in a can The list of unacceptable things in life grows longer every year – it's just a side effect of ageing. So my new pet hate is canned wine. OK, it has taken me a long time to accept that boxed wine is fine (a trip to stay with friends in France, who poured their wine from a box, changed my mind). But canned wine just tastes disgusting.
The Guardian
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘Fashion is about fantasy': Max Mara's short shorts are inspired by postwar Naples
Max Mara is known for its deep-pile camel coats and conservative northern Italian style. But in tune with the times, this season's show at the baroque Palace of Caserta outside Naples opened with a pair of very short shorts. Tight and high-waisted, the vibe was Vogue but the inspiration was the 1949 Italian realist film Riso Amaro (Bitter Rice) and a 19-year-old Italian actor, Silvana Mangano, in a paddy field wearing damp shorts and stockings, which ended up on global billboards. 'Cinema was the thing that really took Italian style into people's lives, and where Italian style was effectively invented,' said Ian Griffiths, Max Mara's designer. 'But afterwards, Silvana said she didn't know her image would be so sexualised, and she wasn't entirely comfortable with it', he said. 'So, I wanted to take this image, and look at how the position of women, real women, had changed', he said. 'The idea is to give [women] something they want to wear, or at least to aspire to.' It's sacrilege to mention Neapolitan style without thinking of Sophia Lauren too, and after the shorts came models in Bardot tops, full skirts and silk hair scarves. 'Think how many women watched her in [1954's] L'Oro di Napoli (The Gold of Naples), went out and bought a checked table cloth, Chianti and a low-cut blouse,' says Griffiths. 'Plus Sophia Loren was more in control of her sex appeal.' There were camel coats of course – of the 100,000 pieces the brand makes each year, three-quarters of them are coats. But there were ever-popular pyjamas-as-daywear too. Billowing in the breeze, it was proof that while what appears on the catwalk doesn't always translate to the real world, some pieces do. Sign up to Fashion Statement Style, with substance: what's really trending this week, a roundup of the best fashion journalism and your wardrobe dilemmas solved after newsletter promotion Perhaps the most interesting counterpoint were the deliberately dour flat tassel brogues. In Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan novels, Lila's shoes represent social mobility and financial opportunity. Here, among the six-figure coats and the patrician arches of an Italian palace, they are virtually an act of rebellion. As for whether it is right to glamorise Naples's postwar style – and its poverty – Griffiths said: 'What should fashion do? We can draw attention to times and places and create an idealised, perfected vision of a reality. Art is about truth, and fashion is about fantasy.' The designer, who by his own admission has been called a cultural vampire, added: 'I've never claimed to be an artist!' The show was the culmination of cruise season. Historically what people wore on Caribbean yachts, it now taps into the 'little treat' post-Christmas market. A relatively recent fixture whereby brands fly journalists, influencers and notables to unusual places, it's a way of paying homage to a place too, but also of getting our attention. 'We're lucky if journalists pick up a press release from a seat,' says Griffiths of the back-to-back fashion weeks. Obviously, only the megabrands can whip up these spectacles, of which Max Mara – Italy's 'silent giant' – is one. The Max Mara fashion group's turnover was £1.6bn last year. 'It's also about flexing your muscles as a brand', said the Derbyshire-born ex-punk who has overseen the brand after winning a student competition in 1987, and has remained ever since. Max Mara was one of the first labels to do ready-to-wear' fashion for the middle classes, and is relatively speaking, more affordable than most big brands. But it has since become synonymous with a clean, no-nonsense look – not to mention women in power. In 2018, Nancy Pelosi's tomato-red coat worn to a meeting with Trump became a symbol of the well-dressed opposition. Founded in 1951, this was also the year of Ruth Orkin's infamous Florentine photograph American Girl in Italy, which became a conversation starter about feminism, freedom and the male gaze – including for Griffiths. Drawing on a collection of totemic women as an extension of Neapolitan glamour is not without its complications. 'We had a discussion about [this]', said Griffiths. 'But [in the case of Mangano particularly] we felt it was right, because we gave her her dignity back. These are clothes that you wear, not clothes that wear you.'
