Even now, while I’m writing this, the song humming in the background is Cano-canoë by Mme. Mick Micheyl; and yet I can remember everything I experienced from Italy — from Milan to Rimini — all clearly. One impression still lingering in my mind, influencing my character and my taste no matter where I go.

Whenever people think of Italy, undeniably, ‘food’, ‘coffee’, and maybe ‘aperitivo’ are probably the visuals that occur in their mind. And I must say — there is certainly a charm to the country, wherever the city is.

However, in my eyesight — when it comes to Italy — there is so much more than the culinary culture, or even the aesthetic of fashion and art.

“A civilization that chose lived texture over abstract coherence.”

That is what I believe acts as the connective web across all the visuals of Roman cuisine, Milanese fashion, Florentine art, and Neapolitan street life.

All of it created the spell and charm so called ‘La Dolce Vita’ — and ironically used by Fellini as a satirical expression of a decadent society in his iconic film, reflecting the shallowness of an endless pursuit of hedonism within Roman high society. Which, these days, many on social media still use as the same kind of buzzword for the same purpose: to tap into the romanticism of the aesthetic without knowing the ‘Why’ behind the sweet life that they cherish from Italian culture.

Again, I was not Italian-born, and I am far from having lived in the place for more than a year — and that is perhaps why I can see exactly what makes the idea of ‘Made in Italy’ — everything from street, architecture, design, drink, clothing, art — so alluring, so beautiful to immerse oneself in.

The thing is — there is a way to appreciate and integrate with Italian beauty without leaning into spectacle, or clinging to surface.

And it all starts by looking back to the period so called….

The Renaissance.

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“These days, what people really do seek is having—or looking like having—a good taste.”

This is the idea that struck me in the past week when I spoke with one of my lifelong friends—someone I’ve known since childhood.

It seems that the idea of algorithmic culture is not just my personal interpretation after all—the effect appears to extend into something broader than disruptive attention and bombarded information, but also into the idea that:

It’s made personal taste matter more than ever.

You can instantly test that assumption of mine in a very simple manner—open your IG, then scroll through the Discover section for a few minutes, and you will see what I mean.

Instagram, like many major social media platforms, is driven by algorithms with the objective of “making users stay as long as possible”—and nothing is more effective at doing that than this timeless rule of media: “Give people what they want.”

What you see through the feed is feedback that IG traces back to your behavior, curated into something “similar” to it. The result is that you begin to develop an ideology, a visual sense, an AESTHETIC—which gradually takes shape into your “taste.” (One that, more often than not, people will also reconfirm by curating their own social accounts through visuals and words.)

Because these platforms don’t just reflect what you like; they quietly train it—feeding you patterns, narrowing your options, and rewarding certain choices over others. You end up feeling like you’re expressing individuality while actually selecting from a refined menu that millions of others are also drawing from.

While the preferences and curation you get from these platforms are not fake, they are also not fully independent.

The reality is—the more polished and consistent your taste appears, the more likely it is that it aligns perfectly with what the algorithm already knows how to amplify.

So the question is—is it possible to develop an actually “great taste” for yourself without relying on the algorithm? And is it even something that matters, in depth and essence, to life in the first place?

Ladies and gentlemen, if that is what you’re curious about, then allow me to introduce you to the ideology of “Taste”—especially in the new millennium, and why it matters more than ever.

“Taste = the ability to select, sequence, and contextualize signals in a way that feels meaningful to others.”

However, in the algorithmic era—where reality exists less in the physical world and increasingly in the digital—the idea of these “signals” has been diluted into something more performative than grounded in real presence.

And the empirical case requires no further search than the IG profile—especially among Generation Z. Lately, I’ve found myself somewhat sympathetic toward them. (since if we’re speaking in chronological terms, I am still part of this generation—albeit at its very early edge).

What you can observe when scrolling through Gen Z profiles—though this varies depending on the culture they were raised in—is a pattern: some present themselves through images blended with “art,” others through trendy iPhone portraits set against exotic locations. But regardless of the form, they all serve a common purpose:

Signaling meaning to others—to demonstrate, express, and declare to the world:

This is Who I Am.

Very human, indeed.

Yet, as I hinted earlier in the illusion of taste in the current era, there is a strong possibility that what is presented as “taste” on social media is merely a beautiful surface without substance beneath it.

For instance, consider a pattern I’ve observed within certain Gen Z social circles I’m familiar with. (If you struggle to picture it, I would describe it as a clear example of fabricated taste at its finest.)

Driven by materialist cultural forces, it manifests as a pursuit of the “good life” through appearances—objects, places, and activities that signal success in a capitalist framework—without deeper awareness or appreciation of what those things actually represent.

• They cannot truly appreciate the wine featured in a fine-dining post

• They do not engage with the cultural depth of the cities or places they proudly use as backdrops for their portraits

Of course, I am not suggesting that anyone who posts their meals or travels is inherently shallow or fabricating taste.

But if you pay close attention, you can often sense the difference—through the visuals and the feeling of a profile—whether there is substance behind the style or not.

Now, the central point I want to make is this: the idea of “taste” has always gone beyond vanity or self-presentation. While it often manifests that way—and understandably so—there is a deeper rationale beneath it. No one wants to stand out awkwardly like a purple cow, yet at the same time, everyone desires a sense of individuality and belonging.

Taste—especially a refined one—offers exactly that.

There’s a French term that holds an iconic status and serves as a kind of noble quality ingrained in Parisian culture—“Le Savoir-Faire,” or “know-how” in English. What it means by “know-how” is not something tied to a specific skill, but rather a way of navigating life itself.

While I have not yet experienced long-term living or deep cultural immersion in Paris, from what I sensed during a brief week of visiting (along with plenty of Nouvelle Vague cinema), the idea of “selecting, sequencing, and contextualizing signals in a way that feels meaningful to others” is something they truly embody. In other words, they cultivate what we call “taste” as a central part of their culture.

Take something as simple as hosting an apéritif.

It looks effortless, but nothing is random. There aren’t ten dishes competing for attention—just a few elements chosen with intention, served in a natural rhythm, and shaped around the mood of the people at the table. The ham comes from a trusted butcher. The wine matches the dish. The cheese is seasonal. Every element reinforces a quiet message: “This moment matters, and I shaped it for you.”

The same logic appears in how people dress.

What looks casual is actually controlled restraint—neutral tones, clean lines, one subtle focal point. Nothing tries too hard, yet everything communicates something. Someone walks through Le Marais wearing jeans, a blazer, neutral shoes. It appears accidental, but that is precisely the intention. Their style is about being understood without explanation.

Even sitting at a café follows this pattern.

It’s not about rushing in for caffeine; it’s about choosing a moment, slowing it down, and engaging with the environment as if it carries meaning. Order, sit, sip slowly, observe. No rushing, no phone obsession. In contrast, cities like New York City often treat coffee as fuel for productivity. In Paris, coffee is life itself.

What’s really happening is a form of disciplined awareness, where one carefully selects what matters, arranges it deliberately, and places it in the right context so it feels meaningful to others. That is why “taste,” in the sense of le savoir-faire, becomes so central in French culture.

Because it is about filtering reality and presenting only what is worth attention.

And the uncomfortable truth is this: most people do not lack taste—they lack the patience, exposure, and discipline to refine it. Which leads to the absence of a currency known as “cultural capital.”

“Taste classifies, and it classifies the classifier…” — Pierre Bourdieu

When people fail to develop the ability to select, sequence, and contextualize what they present to the world, they lose more than refinement—they lose access to something deeper: cultural capital. Not in the superficial sense of knowing “fancy” things, but in the ability to participate fluently in environments where meaning is constructed through subtle signals.

And in spaces where status is determined by those signals, “taste”—as a producer of cultural capital—can carry more weight than monetary capital expressed through surface-level objects and experiences.

Without it, one becomes effectively invisible in spaces that operate on these codes.

Which also means being confined to environments where value must be explicit, loud, or transactional—because there is no access to the quieter currency of perception, nuance, and timing.

This is why old-world heritage cities and modern global metropolises feel so different—they operate on entirely different currencies.

In cities like Paris or Rome, status is built on cultural capital—the kind described by Pierre Bourdieu—an ability to filter, interpret, and express meaning through subtle, coherent signals. The less one tries to impress, the more credible one appears.

In contrast, metropolises like New York City, Bangkok, or Dubai run on attention capital, where visibility itself becomes the primary measure of value. There, it is not about being deeply understood, but instantly recognized—meaning louder, clearer, and more repeatable signals tend to win.

However, ladies and gentlemen, I would offer this statement:

It shapes how you perceive the world, how you filter what matters, and how you organize your choices into something coherent. Internally, it gives you clarity—you are no longer overwhelmed by noise or pulled in every direction. You develop precision in attention, an instinct for what to engage with and what to ignore.

Externally, it shapes how others experience you—even in environments that do not explicitly value refinement.

In some places, it translates directly into status.

In others, it works more subtly, shaping trust, credibility, and opportunity over time.

In an attention-driven culture, it allows you to resonate without becoming noise.

In a culture built on cultural capital, it allows you to move with fluency and depth.

This combination is what creates iconic figures and timeless allure—as seen in the mid-century. Wherever they went, they knew how to navigate. Clear perception, disciplined choice, and contextual awareness—these remain valuable in any environment, whether immediately recognized or not.

Which leads to the final idea we must clarify:

“If taste is more than vanity, then how do we truly cultivate it in the age of the algorithm—one that depends less on it, and remains genuinely distinct?”

In the life you’ve been given—this current existence—you only have one chance. Whether you believe in an afterlife or rebirth or not, you only live once, and it would be a shame not to live up to it.

At least, that’s the idea I’ve held onto since moving past my teenage years. And the consequence of doing so is that you will become…different.

The good news is—that’s the first step in cultivating your own taste.

While it is almost impossible to completely avoid the algorithm today, you are still able to curate your life through other components beyond it.

One thing I want to make clear before going further is this: no matter how distinct your taste becomes, it is a noble pursuit to balance that distinctiveness with fluidity in your social world.

Because that is what elegance is, isn’t it?

Putting others at ease through self-assurance, respect, and grace—without needing anything from them.

An empirical example I can offer is the way of dressing—something I once explored in an editorial written during my time in Milan last winter.

For a long time, I never questioned or fully understood the stylistic language of Bangkok. I used to dismiss it, believing the city had no taste, no space for elegance—no place for the kind of style I admired: jackets, leather footwear, wool as a daily uniform. It wasn’t until I brought that style to Milan that I finally felt a sense of attunement—style in harmony with its environment.

And that led to a realization:

“Of course tailoring works in Milan. It is a city shaped by centuries of fashion, design, and craftsmanship—a cultural capital where such expression belongs.”

But what about Bangkok? What is the stylistic language of this metropolis?

Now, I’ve come to understand it—and, in a sense, finally achieve elegance in my own way. Not by imposing a foreign aesthetic, but by blending my personal taste with the casualness, dynamism, and fashion-forward energy of the city.

So, if there is one essential step I can offer in developing your own taste, it is this: introspection.

Yes, it sounds cliché—almost self-help in tone—but in reality, most of what shapes my choices—how I dress, the films I watch, the music I listen to, even the creation of Renaissance Flâneur itself—comes from self-awareness.

Which leads to a question I’ll leave with you:

Bring that question into your daily life, into everything you choose to do—and you will begin to filter what truly matters from what does not.

Or more simply: what remains?

That is where real taste begins.

Now, here is the method of cultivation I’ve found most reliable: engage deeply with things that demand attention, time, and effort—things that are not easily consumed.

Platforms like Pinterest or Instagram offer pre-curated conclusions. They train you to replicate what has already been validated. But authentic taste develops through direct encounters—with reality, with constraint, and with friction.

For me, engaging with challenging material—whether difficult books, slow cinema, or any craft that requires judgment and editing—is essential. Because that is where you learn to decide what matters.

• Films from European directors of the 1960s, such as Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni, Alain Resnais, and Jean-Luc Godard—they immerse you in narrative depth, human complexity, and a certain existential elegance that lingers far beyond the screen.

• Tailoring—especially sartorial craft or even haute couture—demands an understanding of history, technique, and aesthetic judgment that shapes both the wearer and the creator.

• Gastronomy allows you to understand culture beyond flavor—into rhythm, lifestyle, and the way people inhabit time.

• Books from thinkers such as Italo Calvino, Friedrich Nietzsche, Niccolò Machiavelli, and Ernest Hemingway—while their lives were far from perfect—offer direct access to thought, experience, and perspective that refine one’s own.

All of these transform passive preference into genuine discernment.

You no longer think in terms of “what looks good” or “what should I choose,” because your perception has been trained to recognize proportion, timing, and context instinctively.

Which brings us back to what the French mean by le savoir-faire: not knowledge you can easily explain, but an embodied ability to act appropriately in the moment.

Instead of reacting or copying, you begin to move with precision—you enter a room and adjust naturally, you speak and reveal just enough, you choose and arrange things with coherence, without overthinking.

In other words, taste stops being something you have and becomes something you do—fluidly, and contextually.

That is when your real taste emerges.

What distinguishes a person with taste is not what they own or display, but what they perceive. They see the selection behind what appears, the context that gives it meaning, and the coherence that holds it together. Where others see surfaces, they see decisions—what was chosen, what was rejected, and why it fits.

And once you begin to see this, you cannot return to seeing things the same way again.

For a mere teenager back then, that experience — the night spent alone, sipping a drink discreetly and watching the scene of ‘culture’ that I, at that time, had not articulated so well why I was drawn to it so much…

But the more I experience life, the more I absorb media — the more I can see the intersection between these… films, books, and shows. Whether Mad Men when I was 22, or classic 007 starring the man ‘Sean Connery’ at 23 years old — now half a decade has passed, and all the media I adored always led down the same ‘road’ that leads to the mid-century period.

As once elaborated in this editorial of mine — the era represented the last era of virtue that the 2020s seem to have discarded or somewhat ‘forgotten’. The idea of holding elegance as the ‘standard’, not optional; the interaction with grace and manner during encounters and conversations; or even the atmosphere that still allowed people to sit, think, and stay with themselves without being diluted by the bombardment of algorithms all the time.

However — among all the forgotten rituals and entities that once gloried during the mid-century, there’s one scenario that still breathes and holds its little corner for me — and likely you — to be able to tap into the essence of that era:

‘The Bar’

I still remember the first time I walked into the place so-called ‘Crimson Room’ when I was 20. I dressed in a poorly fitted oversized plain beige jacket, black slim-fit low-waist slacks, and dark brown horsebit loafers — to be honest, I would rate my ‘style’ very low — but in terms of the ‘courage’ to finally actualize the vision I had envisioned for so long, from a bar scene in New York in White Collar or Pierce Brosnan in a 1980s power suit as shown in Remington Steele — that was the ‘moment’ to remember.

Back then, my perception of ‘nightlife’ and ‘drinking’ culture was like most teenagers living in the new millennium — an outrageous, wild, and intense alcohol consumption with loud R&B music setting a vibrant atmosphere — but that night made me realize, or eventually tap into, another version of nightlife.

One that cherishes composure, intention, understated elegance, and a deliberate way of living.

A very few places where elegant attire and old-world virtue are still ‘accepted’ to be integrated with modernity — and certainly a place where nightlife, either in a big metropolis or a small town on any continent, will always have one.

The thing is — behind the tons of liquor on a shelf, the warm-lit interior — what’s the appeal of this ‘culture’? Why is it considered a transportation to a bygone era, without the need for a time machine?

There are images you can imagine whenever the word ‘nightlife’ occurs in your mind… the straight, long line of people awaiting entry into the most ‘trending’ club of the season; the loud outdoor spaces full of individuals holding glasses of beer and ‘enjoying’ their time as dusk arrives, with the idea of ‘consuming’ as many drinks as possible.

In which, most of the time, is an act of escapism. Either from the reality they’re facing or from incidents that are disturbing their minds.

Truth is, in terms of legality and morality — there’s nothing wrong with those. In the end, that is how ‘taverns’ during the medieval period to nightclubs in these days came to exist in the first place as a ‘business’ — since it’s the way humans naturally lean toward temporarily ‘releasing’ the tension of their lives.

However, the problem with it is this:

When most people talk about nightlife, they picture energy, freedom, and connection — but when you actually stand in the middle of it in the new millennium, something feels slightly off, like the whole thing is running on autopilot.

Ladies and gentlemen, again, it’s not that people are doing anything wrong; they’re just trying to unwind, to feel something, to escape the weight of their own thoughts. But instead of real release, it often turns into performance — people dressing, moving, even reacting in ways that feel subtly rehearsed, as if they’re more aware of how they’re being seen than what they’re actually experiencing.

The music is loud, the lights are designed to impress, the drinks flow endlessly — yet genuine connection feels rare, almost impossible to create. It’s as if the environment is engineered to simulate intensity rather than allow something real to emerge. And maybe that’s the unsettling part — you can sense that beneath all the stimulation, many people aren’t fully there; they’re negotiating with their own emptiness, trying to override it rather than face it.

So the whole scene of modern nightlife works, capitalistically — it’s lively, crowded, profitable — but it lacks a certain human depth, the kind that makes an experience feel meaningful rather than just momentarily distracting.

Now, allow me to introduce you to ‘bar culture’, the vision of mine that served as a time machine to the last frontier of elegance, where nightlife could still be a place for ‘genuine connection’, with an atmosphere that allowed it to happen.

First, trust me that I am very aware that the visual of a man in a grey flannel suit in Mad Men, having 2–3 martinis, or Marcello Mastroianni in La Dolce Vita opening a bottle of champagne at a 1960s Roman social club, is not all glamour and purity in that sense. There is still the idea of escapism, the dynamic of social leverage and status games—the things that make ‘a human a human’.

But one obvious thing is that in those days—men and women were willing to hold onto consciousness and willing to adopt a subtle, understated way of releasing tension; all of which was reflected through the series of conversations, the varieties of cocktails, and elegance in attire—a reflection of quiet discipline.

Conversation — The Intimacy through Substance

Dialogue during the evening wasn’t filler to pass time, but more of the event itself. People spoke with a kind of deliberate presence, where wit, restraint, and timing mattered as much as what was actually said. As you see it echoed in shows like Mad Men, where a single exchange could reveal more than an entire modern night out. There was intimacy in that—not because people overshared, but because they withheld just enough to make every word count, and were not afraid to go deep into the details of a conversation once it began.

Cocktail — The Drink that Reflects Taste

Ordering a drink was a subtle declaration of taste, rhythm, even personality. I once elaborated on this in an editorial—but in a basic sense, there is the art of the cocktail, the depth behind each whisky, the composition behind each bottle of wine; one that required a discerning individual to curate and cultivate their taste, to master the way of ordering in each evening. It was a controlled accent to the atmosphere and companionship—both enhancing and reflecting the mood of the moment.

Elegance — The Symbol of Consciousness

The way people dressed, carried themselves, entered a room—back then, it was a signal that they understood the social fabric they were part of. Think of the composed presence of Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman—two embodiments of mature grace at its peak form. The idea of elegance was about being in control of oneself in front of others.

Put together, these elements created a kind of evening culture where nothing was loud, but everything had weight—where tension, taste, and awareness turned even the simplest interaction into something that felt, unmistakably, human.

And all of those three—you can ‘actually’ find embodied in the place so-called ‘bar’.

There’s nothing that beats the bizarre experience of stepping into this kind of place for the first time—for me, as a mere teenager back then, ‘overwhelming’ is the term that defines that memory.

• Where to sit?

• What to order?

• How should I behave?

Many questions occurred—yet, when things began to stabilize, when it was the next time, and another, and another—I then realized for sure that ‘this is one of the best ways to spend the evening’.

It was far from a crowded atmosphere, far from hedonistic indulgence—though there were times I still saw those in such places—but very occasionally. This also depends on the ‘choice of bar’ you go to. Because… if it’s a mass spot, it’s hard for it not to be full of people (and the increasing chance of facing a chaotic mode).

However, that scenario can turn into a beauty of the Flâneur at its finest.

Imagine yourself composed through internal character and external appearance; complete in yourself, nothing shouting—and then simply finding a comfortable place at a bar, ordering a drink that lasts long enough to savor over an hour, and watching ‘modern’ life as it unfolds… without attachment.

Seeing it, observing it, questioning it—these are the joys themselves.

The beauty is that a place so-called ‘bar’ can serve many purposes—whether that flâneur act, lingering conversations with company, or deep introspection within the sphere of jazz or your favourite genres of music.

Again, the choice of bar truly matters—and the practice I can share is to “explore the very city” you’re in, since each one carries its own tempo and language.

In my case, there is a clear differentiation between bars in Milan and Bangkok—in other words, an old-world city and a new-world metropolis. When I was in Milan last winter, the mood of the place carried a consistent energy: intimacy, warmth, elegance, and a sense of passion—whether in the drinks or the people. Here in Bangkok now, it’s about experiencing the perspective of the metropolis—whether on a high floor of a grand skyscraper or discreetly tucked into a hidden street of the old town… but both operate on a similar philosophy: indulgence, extravagance, and vibrancy.

Now, the question remains—how do you integrate this idea of ‘bar culture’ into your own life without ending up as an alcoholic?

Trust me, that was the question I had before setting foot in Milan.

While I had heard the term ‘aperitivo’ or ‘aperitif’ before, I never truly understood it… “What is the idea of this period, in terms of having a drink in the early evening before a proper dinner?”

Until I walked along Porta Venezia, San Babila, and other districts in Milan—and finally came to understand this culture, which surprisingly aligns with the ‘Flâneur Bar Culture’ we have discussed.

The term “aperitivo” comes from the Latin aperire—to open. Biologically, it opens the appetite of the digestive system. And what better time to do so than after work, in the evening, in an open social setting? Seen this way, aperitivo hours become a kind of ‘break mechanism’ within modern work life—psychologically signaling that “today’s work period is done, and it can wait until tomorrow.”

Unfortunately, that kind of privilege, while still active in Western Europe, is not fully integrated in other parts of the world—especially major metropolises like the US, Tokyo, Bangkok, Singapore, and others. There’s a high chance that if you’re a knowledge worker with a full-time employment contract, while you’re sipping your Negroni, a Slack notification or a direct WhatsApp call will interrupt the moment.

Ladies and gentlemen, what I propose is this:

Again, if there’s a single culture that has fully survived and is still applicable from the mid-century to this very day—it is the elegance of having a drink at a bar.

In the end, this is a symbol of deliberate living, one that resists modern conditions. Where you choose to maintain elegance in a place that demands it; where you regain your personal time, or at least choose to spend it in conversational fulfillment with those you care about—and hopefully, where you are able to sit still and observe the people, the city, and yourself—even if it’s just for a few hours in a week.

“One thing I will do for sure, when I arrive back at my place in Bangkok, is to ‘integrate’ the well-considered design you have here into my own space.”

That was what I told my Airbnb host and friend—Alessandro—when I was in Milan last winter.

His apartment at Via Pasquale Sottocorno 9—while certainly spacious, with multiple rooms—held something more compelling: the idea of creating an atmosphere that felt calm, present, and serene within it. The thoughtful placement of lamps, a well-crafted chair from the late 20th century, and, of course, postmodern artwork—deeply regarded within Milan’s cultural sphere.

With that thought in mind, it ignited a new perspective in me; whether in observing fleeting life in the city, or in watching films, I began to find myself drawn to the materials—the chairs, the tables, the buildings—to feel the space through the visual language of cinema, particularly from the 1960s.

And just as I once fell completely, almost irrationally, in love with clothing and fashion—this time, it is design.

In recent weeks, whenever a cultural moment arises, I find myself leaning toward names such as Tadao Ando, Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, Julius Shulman—and, certainly, cinema that represents ‘design’ during the mid-century period I so admire.

Ladies and gentlemen, one thing I can firmly say to you here is this—design is a part of life that is worth every minute spent cultivating into one’s cultural fluency.

If you wonder why—then we must first clarify this term…

“What is Design, actually?”

“A house is a machine for living in.” — Charles-Édouard ‘Le Corbusier’ Jeanneret

Design is one of those words people throw around as if it simply means decoration.

However, beyond this superficial interpretation, design is fundamentally about making things make sense.

At its core, design is the deliberate act of shaping form, function, and experience to solve a problem or express an intention. It sits at the intersection of logic and perception—part engineering, part psychology, part art.

When something is well-designed, you don’t notice it—you simply move through it effortlessly, because it aligns with how humans think, feel, and behave.

Now, the question is: why is design so tightly bound to architecture, interiors, and furniture?

If I were to answer from my personal worldview, it is because these disciplines deal directly with the human environment—the spaces we inhabit and the objects we constantly interact with.

• Architecture is not merely about constructing buildings; it is about orchestrating space, light, movement, and emotion on a structural scale.

• Interior design moves inward, shaping how those spaces function and feel—how a room guides behavior, comfort, and mood.

• Furniture design becomes even more intimate, focusing on the objects the body physically engages with—chairs, tables, surfaces—where ergonomics, material, and form converge.

These fields are inseparable from design because they cannot exist without intentional decisions about human use.

A chair that looks stunning but destroys your spine is bad design.

A building that impresses visually but confuses movement is bad design.

A room that is stylish but emotionally sterile is bad design.

In all these cases, the failure is not aesthetic—it is conceptual.

So the real answer is this:

Architecture, interiors, and furniture are simply its most tangible forms—where bad thinking becomes physically unavoidable, and good thinking becomes quietly indispensable.

This is why something remarkable occurred in the realm of design during the mid-century period—the idea of form and function converging into a kind of timeless harmony. One could argue it was the last moment when design, industry, and human life aligned without pretense.

After the chaos of war and the excess of ornament-heavy eras, designers stopped asking, “What looks impressive?” and began asking, “What actually works for living?”

That shift produced clarity.

Consider the Case Study Houses—especially the Stahl House by Pierre Koenig.

They were not just architectural statements, but prototypes for living: modular, efficient, open, and deeply connected to climate and landscape, as captured through the lens of Julius Shulman. While they appear cinematic, what you are truly seeing is logic made beautiful—glass walls not for spectacle, but to dissolve boundaries; open plans not for trend, but for flexibility.

At the object scale, Charles and Ray Eames approached design with similar intent. The Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman was not created to be iconic—it became iconic because it resolved problems with elegance. Molded plywood, ergonomic precision, and the ability to be mass-produced without sacrificing human comfort.

Or take Dieter Rams at Braun—he reduced products until only purpose remained, inadvertently defining a visual language that companies still emulate today, including the work seen in early Apple under Steve Jobs.

To say that mid-century design still feels modern and relevant today is to misunderstand it. It was never chasing “modernity” to begin with—it was pursuing coherence between form, function, material, and human behavior.

What is perhaps more troubling is how often design is overlooked as a meaningful part of everyday life—and there is a reason for that.

Design, in its true form, demands awareness: noticing why something works, why it feels right, why something frustrates you even if you cannot immediately explain it. This requires a level of perception most people are neither trained—nor willing—to develop.

It is easier to accept things as they are than to question why a door handle confuses you, why a room feels oppressive, or why a product subtly irritates you every day. These acts require presence and attention—qualities that are increasingly eroded in an age shaped by algorithmic culture.

Then there is the cultural layer—consumerism as shaped by capitalism, particularly in hyper-vibrant cities that amplify this condition. Most people are conditioned to ask, “Do I like this?” rather than “Does this work well?” or “Why was this made this way?” That shift—from passive liking to active understanding—is the real barrier.

So it is not that people cannot understand design—it is that understanding design requires effort, attention, and a willingness to see beyond the surface.

And most people, if we are being honest, optimize for ease and comfort.

Yet, like other forms of art—or even clothing—the purpose of great design is grounded in people, in experience, and in the cultivation of perception. To develop fluency in appreciating it is not a futile pursuit.

It is, quite simply, a way to make life more serene—to be lived with greater clarity, and quiet enjoyment.

A quick note I must make—this is a personal perspective from someone who knows nothing, quite literally nothing, about design—or at least is far from fluent compared to clothing and fashion, which I’ve spent nearly half a decade immersed in.

But I think that’s precisely the point.

Because if you’ve read this far and are wondering how to begin cultivating your eye, your sense, and your taste in this realm—here are my direct experiences.

(All of this can be done with little to a very precise budget—far from requiring furniture or pieces that cost ten grand.)

And…I would begin with this:

Simple as it sounds, there is a reason for it. There is a high chance that the things surrounding your life—the city you are in, the places you go, the films you watch—are already attuned to your preferences.

They are part of your identity. And what better place to begin understanding design than from what is already close to you?

For instance, Mad Men—this all-time great from the golden era of television became, in my case, a kind of “study in motion.” It made me fall in love with design long before I understood why.

The interiors, the buildings, the artwork—they represent the era I am most drawn to: mid-century. Just like style, way of life, and the broader cultural landscape of that time, my design preference naturally gravitates there as a foundation.

The places that speak to me are those shaped by interiors of that era. The galleries that resonate are those presenting post-war art. And all of these spaces, without exception, leave behind cues—quiet lessons in design, waiting to be noticed.

So the real practice here is not to curate more—but to notice more, and to place greater intention on your everyday experience. Even if this feels difficult in a world that constantly pushes you to move, scroll, and consume.

My way of anchoring this—and one that has worked remarkably well—is to simply sit down with a book.

Within the realm of design, nothing is more quietly compelling than a coffee table book. As superficial as it may sound, these books are deeply visual and culturally dense—spanning fashion, lifestyle, and, of course, design.

From interiors to large-scale architecture, they allow you to sit still—with a coffee or a glass of wine—and move through them slowly. You begin to see details. And more importantly, you can return to them, again and again.

That act of returning is crucial. It stands in direct opposition to the algorithmic culture that constantly pushes newness without depth.

The only thing to keep in mind when approaching these books is this: slow down, and ask questions.

Why does this work?

What’s missing?

What would happen if this element were removed?

Then compare pages. Look for patterns across projects.

That is when your “eye” begins to evolve—from instinct into judgment.

It sharpens in the same way repeated exposure to a language sharpens your ear. You begin to notice proportion, restraint, material honesty, spatial rhythm—things most people remain blind to.

While this will not give you technical mastery, it does something just as important in the early stage:

It calibrates your internal compass—allowing you to recognize coherence.

Recently, a book like The World of Apartamento caught my attention. It turned out to be an investment in a very specific visual language—one that helped me understand what makes an interior feel alive, and how deeply it connects to the way we live.

Now, I find myself noticing things I once overlooked entirely—the way light hits a cracked wall and reflects into a room, the curvature of a chair designed with restraint, the presence of raw, brutalist pillars intersecting with everyday objects in a café that doubles as a roastery.

All of it forms a quiet coherence—a narrative.

And it is something I would not have seen, even on my twelfth visit to the same place, had I not begun cultivating this language of design.

Ladies and gentlemen, I suppose that is the true beauty of cultural fluency—

It allows you to understand the world more deeply.

Or, at the very least, the life you are already living.

Either from wearing it myself or seeing ‘the masses’ wear it.

Looking back at that thought, I feel quite ashamed to have had that judgment of this garment. Though I couldn’t help it, since the ‘image projection’ of the majority of people who wear jeans these days—especially men—has somewhat been labeled as ‘casual, slop and loose’ (for women, they tend to know well which cut and silhouette of jeans will serve their body, from fuller, flair to the current baggy trend).

The funny thing is—before I embarked on my sartorial journey, 7–8 years ago—even back when I was a student, my ‘ensemble’—the most favorite one without knowing why—was ‘white shirt with indigo denim and white sneakers’. Even if it’s the fact that the shirt was made of cheap polyester, the jeans were skinny and tight to every muscle molecule of my lower body (with a lower rise also)…

I still remember the feeling of wearing it:

“uncomfortable by body, but so ‘comfort’ emotionally.”

I didn’t know why—until this current phase of my life, when I began to ‘realize’ the truth behind clothes & culture—that they are always associated with each other, always.

Now that I’m back for a break from the globe-trotter phase—in Bangkok again… the place that I once resented and accused of its superficialness, overly casual nature, and ‘jeans’ everywhere—I confess to you that in the past week, I wore ‘jeans’ more than tailored ‘wool’ trousers that I once thought were the pinnacle of comfort and style.

With the only denim I have—the high-waisted, flared, green-cast indigo from Husbands—from cosmopolitan casual to tailoring-oriented ensemble, whether I wore it with a classic white T-shirt or with a jacket and striped shirt inside—the jean ‘anchors’ me to stay ‘attuned’ to modernity more than the double-pleated wool trousers I’m fond of.

The question that is worth ‘exploring’ is:

“Why is this happening?”

Not only for me, but for many like-minded individuals whom I know, who love style from a bygone era but do not stick to the exact past.

What makes ‘jeans’ and ‘modernity’ have such an unbreakable bond with each other?

Why is it the most empirically practiced way to ‘integrate’ elegance into the modern world?

And we shall start by ‘exploring’ this term ‘modern’ at its core.

“Modernity is the transient, the fleeting, the contingent; it is one half of art, the other being the eternal and the immovable.” - Charles Baudelaire

‘Modern’ usually refers to the era that emerges out of the collapse of medieval structures and crystallizes between the 16th and 18th centuries, gaining full force with the Enlightenment and industrialization.

But “modern” is more than a timeline—it is more of an archetype.

The modern individual is defined by a belief that the world is understandable, improvable, and ultimately controllable through human reason. This is the birth of the autonomous self: the idea that identity is self-constructed rather than inherited. It produces ambition, innovation, and scientific breakthroughs—but also anxiety, alienation, and the constant pressure to redefine oneself.

So the idea of modernity really fractured in the mid-20th century, when the same systems that promised advancement also produced instability, alienation, and contradiction.

Take Antonioni’s so-called trilogy—L’Avventura, La Notte, and L’Eclisse.

These films don’t just depict alienation; they expose the failure of the modern promise. His characters are materially comfortable, socially mobile, and “free” in the modern sense, yet they drift—unable to anchor meaning.

The same tension is applied to mid-20th-century philosophy by two prominent figures: Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. One pushes the modern idea to its extreme—if there’s no predetermined essence, then you are entirely responsible for who you become. The other looks at this “modern” condition and essentially says: the universe doesn’t care about your search for meaning.

Things also happened in architecture, interior design, music, and culture as a whole—forces that began to challenge old-world power structures and ‘break through’ them with rigorous intensity, as seen in the counterculture movement.

So what followed from the 1960s was a loss of certainty, and it is here that the “contemporary” begins: a world still built on modern structures—capitalism, technology, individualism—but no longer confined to a single narrative of progress. Instead of moving forward with clarity, everything now coexists—styles, values, identities—without a dominant center.

And here comes the ‘game-changer’: people began dressing more ‘freely’ than ever—and were socially accepted to do so for the first time.

Ladies and gentlemen, what do you see from these iconic archives during the 1970s?

Sure, they represented the quality we cherish—elegance—without any doubt… either in the years these pictures were taken or in the current day and night.

The thing is, if we place all of them in 2026—whether in new-world metropolises like Bangkok, Dubai, Tokyo, or old-world European capitals like Milan, Paris, Vienna—even though modern masses do not dress like them anymore, they still ‘look and feel’ attuned to our era, even 50 years later.

On the contrary, if it were Cary Grant in the 1930s or Audrey Hepburn in the 1950s—their style and attire would certainly feel ‘out of place,’ and it would be difficult to call it ‘elegance’ within the contemporary atmosphere.

The real mechanism behind this phenomenon is this—they are the first generation dressing under the same philosophical conditions we still live in.

• No fixed dress code

• No obligation to signal class through clothing

• Comfort and individuality prioritized

• Mixing of formal and informal normalized

After the counterculture, these became the values by which people have approached clothing ever since.

And that is why, if the city you’re living in has no historical rooting associated with old-world glamour—like Bangkok, where I’m living now—no matter how light the fabric of your wool suit is, or how soft the calfskin of your oxfords are, you cannot achieve ‘attunement’ with the city and the modern masses.

Now, here comes our protagonist in this editorial—‘Jeans’.

Because… if there’s a garment that those icons of the 1970s ‘always’ incorporated into their ‘elegant ensemble’ as a part of it—it is this garment that serves as a ‘democratic anchor’ to make elegance alive.

This garment has been with us for more than a century—considering that Levi Strauss debuted it in 1873—specially made for miners and laborers. So by original intent, denim begins as pure function, completely outside the logic of fashion. Which means jeans carry no original connection to status, taste, or elegance—only utility.

However, there’s a significant connection between the idea of putting this blue-collar garment into civilian wear and the shift in the norm of dressing, as we’ve discussed above.

For decades during the early 20th century, workwear is workwear.

Civilian dress (especially in cities) remains coded, hierarchical, and formal. Then the mid-century starts eroding those boundaries: mass media spreads images, youth culture emerges, class mobility increases.

Denim begins to leak into civilian life—first as rebellion—think James Dean in a red Harrington, white tee, and indigo jeans in Rebel Without a Cause; the perfect representation of how the identity of youth and the clothes of jeans reflected each other).

So the real shift happens when denim stops being rebellious and becomes normal in the late 60s–70s (and it still is ever since).

It is the moment that society no longer requires clothing to visibly encode your role.

Once a former miner’s garment can be worn by artists, actors, elites, and everyday people alike, the old system—where clothing clearly communicated class and function—has effectively collapsed.

And from there, everything we discussed follows:

• Designers integrate denim → because the hierarchy is already broken

• Icons wear denim with tailoring → because mixing no longer violates rules

• Global cities adopt it → because it requires no shared cultural code to “read”

Denim works everywhere—from Milan to Tokyo to Bangkok—because it is the lowest common denominator of dress in a fragmented world.

But ladies and gentlemen, don’t mistake this for equality or simplicity.

Because the irony here is that:

While denim helped dissolve visible class distinctions in clothing… it then became one of the most sophisticated tools to reintroduce distinction subtly—through cut, wash, craft, and styling.

It’s obvious that jeans—because of their democratic nature—lead to the fact that the masses adopt them, and most of the time, the ‘silhouette’ and the aesthetic are far from pleasing… sometimes, the pair is low-waisted with too tight hips and a poor, excessive break at the hem. Or sometimes the shape is too avant-garde and leans into ‘fashion-forward’ with no restraint, like the current ‘baggy trend’ or exaggerated flares.

Don’t get me wrong, I do love the ‘flared’ silhouette; it’s very flattering, and very sophisticated to wear one if you know yourself—both physically and psychologically… so if you wonder ‘how to achieve elegance when wearing one’—here is my complete playbook.

#1 Getting to Know Your Body Shape

Elegance in denim begins not with the garment, but with the man—or woman—wearing it.

Since the garment itself, by nature—or at least when it was invented—has a certain structure, a rigidity of its own that serves differently than, let’s say, dress trousers. By understanding your body shape, you allow jeans to become an extension of your proportions rather than a contradiction of them.

Because most jeans have a ‘mid to high rise,’ do not expect them to feel like wearing pleated high-rise trousers—which is the great thing and beauty of it. Also, the proportion of jeans is usually cut to ‘hang’ on your lower body anatomy by nature; so even if it’s one that is cut in a straight leg, like the iconic Levi’s 501 with an 8-inch leg opening, it is still more ‘tapered’ to your body than most trousers would be.

That’s why knowing your own shape—how long your torso is compared to your lower part, how big or slim your legs are—really matters in deciding whether ‘denim’ will give you elegance or not.

When denim respects your architecture (or you respect denim as it is), the garment itself begins to look less like casual wear and more like a deliberate choice of a man or a woman wearing it.

#2 Always Be Mindful of ‘Garment Quality’

Denim, despite its rugged origins, is a fabric where quality speaks quietly, but unmistakably.

A superior pair of jeans reveals itself through the density and integrity of the cloth, often selvedge-woven (the red-stitched edge on the inside out-seam).

Also, you can notice the quality through the evenness of the twill, the richness of the indigo dye, and the precision of the stitching—chain-stitched hems, bar tacks placed with purpose, rivets that are functional rather than decorative afterthoughts.

Over time, a well-made pair develops a patina unique to its wearer, acquiring creases and fades that no factory can convincingly replicate. That quiet evolution is, in many ways, the essence of elegance.

(If you would like to explore more on ‘How to Spot Quality in Denim’—this article from Permanent Style helped me in the early days, and I do believe it will do the same for you.)

#3 Study the ‘Design’ Philosophy Behind

Every pair of jeans carries with it a lineage—either from workwear roots in the late 19th century, rebellious subcultures in the mid-20th, or modern reinterpretations you can see many designers return to again and again.

By understanding that narrative, you elevate how you wear them.

A classic five-pocket design, for example, originates from 19th-century utility garments, built for durability and function. Contemporary designers may refine this archetype with subtle adjustments: a cleaner pocket shape, a more refined rise, or a minimalist hardware approach.

When you appreciate these decisions, you begin to choose denim not merely for appearance, but for intent. For instance, my green-cast indigo, high-waisted flared denim from Husbands is a ‘Parisian’ interpretation of bringing the 1970s cultural scene into the garment—and can be worn with tailoring elegantly; through Japanese fine denim, minimal detailing, and an elongated silhouette—much like the French icons of that era.

Each brand has its own philosophy—Levi’s with its workwear rugged roots, Wrangler with cowboy cool; on the Japanese side, Fullcount with its Zimbabwe cotton that turns denim into something that feels almost like trousers, or Resolute, which pays homage to 1960s Levi’s, reflecting youth and rebellious cool through the precision of a Japanese lens.

The thing is, elegance lies in coherence—and aligning the story of the garment with the context in which you wear it is one of the easiest ways to achieve that.

#4 Incorporate with Other ‘Classics’

Denim achieves its highest expression when it converses with other timeless pieces.

With its informal nature, when incorporated with classics—cashmere crewnecks, long-sleeve silk shirts, tailored jackets, leather shoes, structured coats—garments that carry historical weight—you create a balance between the contemporary and the elegance of a bygone era, made into alignment.

The key is balance—allowing denim to soften the rigidity of tailored garments, while those classics, in turn, elevate the denim beyond its utilitarian origins.

Done well, the ensemble does not appear dressed up or down, but simply resolved—each element supporting the other in quiet agreement.

From the fact that, while I’m writing this piece, I am wearing a vintage Wrangler bootcut in deep indigo (that has already faded in its own unique way)—the feeling of doing so is much different from wearing jeans in the 2010s, before I was enlightened through my sartorial pilgrimage.

Since my ensemble here is a combination of white linen, black calfskin Cuban-heel Chelsea boots, and finished with a black-strap tank watch—the mood and tone are far from the typical ‘denim’ modern look, but lean toward a louche yet architectural silhouette that provokes the essence of Continental elegance in the 20th century—all without feeling or looking out of place in a modern, casual, tropical metropolis like Bangkok.

A perfect bridge between a world that required structure and a world that rejects it.

In newer, accelerated metropolises like Bangkok or Tokyo, codes of elegance in the old-world sense—through tailoring and couture—were never deeply rooted to begin with. These cities don’t have a long cultural memory telling people what a suit or a well-cut black dress “means,” so pure elegant garments can feel imposed, even artificial.

Denim somewhat solves that tension.

It carries no historical obligation in those contexts—it is globally neutral, socially flexible, and immediately legible. When you combine denim with tailoring, you soften the rigidity of the latter without discarding it entirely. The jacket stops looking like a uniform and starts functioning as a choice.

More importantly, denim allows tailoring to survive in a world that no longer respects formality as a default.

Once clothing stopped being a requirement and became a form of expression, pure tailoring lost its natural habitat. It needed something to destabilize it—to make it feel voluntary rather than enforced. Denim introduces informality, movement, and a sense of lived-in reality that tailoring alone often lacks today.

That’s why, in contemporary cities—especially those defined by speed, climate, and global influence—denim becomes the anchor. It grounds the outfit in the present, while tailoring adds intention and refinement. Without denim (or something like it), tailoring risks looking like a costume from a system people no longer believe in.

Basically, in our current grand culture, denim translates tailoring into a language that contemporary life can understand. It removes the demand for obedience while preserving the possibility of elegance.

And I would argue this clearly:

Which, in your own wardrobe, the garment so-called ‘denim’—a well-considered, well-crafted, well-cut one—truly deserves a place. It surprisingly allows elegance to remain believable under modern conditions.

The matter that you and I both know is the hope to regain ‘structure’ and ‘moment’ within an environment that is always ready to seize our attention at any time. Which results in fragmented action, cluttered routines, and the interruption of flow—whether it’s the moment you want to sit down (or stand up) to do the work, to break away from capitalism’s calling and sit still with yourself or with the people you love, or simply to engage in activities that enrich your skill, character, and depth in life (without needing to worry about a ping on Slack or a personal DM on WhatsApp about some urgent workplace issue).

However, it is also hard to resist that chaotic entropy, especially when the demands of money and productivity never sleep. Sure, if you’re in a specific place—for instance, a small coastal town in Italy, a city in Scandinavia, or a tropical island like Bali—you might be able to embrace life at a more controllable pace more easily than in a big metropolis. But if you are in the urban metropolis, then trust me—you are playing against all odds.

The thing is, while it’s obviously harder to achieve a state of composure, elegance, and a deliberate lifestyle in a metropolitan setting compared to a life on the quieter side of the world—it’s not impossible.

But once you know the ‘taste’ of it—the importance of cultivated elegance in the quality of living—you cannot help but be drawn to the image of being in control: control of the time you wake up, control of how you use your body, the way you eat, and the life you truly want to live—without needing to wait any longer. No matter the price you have to pay to attain that ‘Dolce Vita’ (in an actual sense) in the 2020s and beyond.

When you imagine the visual of ‘elegance’—what do you see?

• A man in tailored garments, sipping a Martini at a classic bar in a century-old hotel?

• A woman in a black dress with dark sunglasses, spending time on her own at a café?

• A world where restraint is cherished and completeness is achieved without excess?

Elegance is a term that is widely used these days—mostly as a marketing gimmick, for a certain image, a nostalgic act, or another form of vanity display. You can see it in ‘quiet luxury’-like brands that forgo the most important thing that made true quiet luxury brands a hit—‘substance’.

It can also be seen in black-and-white images of the 20th century that spread across Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, then wrapped up in the ideology of the ‘Old Money Aesthetic’.

The thing is, elegance, when considered at its core, is much simpler than those visuals. If we consider the root of elegance, it actually comes from a Latin verb called eligere, which means “to select.” So to say that it wasn’t really about beauty at all, but about having good judgment and knowing how to pick the right things.

Historically, Cicero, the statesman of ancient Rome, used a related word, elegans, to describe someone with refined taste, especially in speech or writing. Over time, the word passed through French into English, and its meaning gradually shifted.

It began to include ideas of grace, beauty, and style, but it retained that deeper sense of careful choice. That’s why even today, when we call something elegant—like a design, an outfit, or even a mathematical solution—we usually mean it’s not just beautiful, but also simple, effective, and thoughtfully put together.

A lead back to the core of the term, which is “to select.”

However, I cannot disagree with many modern internet nostalgic archives from creators around the world who collect images and icons from the last century—from actors to musicians, to philosophers, to architecture, to designers…all names and faces that haven’t been missed this much—and there’s a reason for that.

Especially figures from the period so-called ‘the Mid-Century.’

I once wrote a piece on all the reasons why this period, in my humble opinion, is considered the last frontier of elegance.

Basically, it’s an era where this term was treated as a societal norm and a virtue that was still rewarded when cultivated. But as you might guess, when movements like the counterculture hit mankind during the late 1960s, the world was never the same—especially in terms of a strong push against anything that felt imposed or overly formal.

Elegance, which once signaled refinement, began to feel to some like conformity or even restriction. So the cultural ideal shifted—from polish and restraint toward authenticity and self-expression. People started valuing what felt real, raw, and individual over what appeared carefully composed. And as media sped up (television then, and the internet now), and society became more fragmented, there was no longer a single standard of taste for everyone to follow.

And that’s the rationale behind why Instagram or TikTok accounts that curate 20th-century images—whether old cinema, musicians, designers, or cultural icons—are, in some sense, a response to the modern world.

When culture moves so fast, and everything feels immediate, unfiltered, and sometimes chaotic, images from the mid-century—where style felt intentional, people looked composed, and there seemed to be a shared sense of taste—create a kind of contrast that feels almost surreal, yet still within reach; in other words, a nostalgia for a different pace and a different standard.

Renaissance Flâneur—as I can firmly say—is part of that counterforce, with one crucial idea in mind:

“How should a thoughtful person live well in modernity?”

One thing I decided from day one, as the founder of this publication, is that RF must not ‘cherish’ the past without relevance.

Milan has shown me it’s possible to do so.

By staying there, I noticed that even though it’s 2026 and people don’t dress or speak in the manner of the mid-century or earlier—it still holds a cultural weight of elegance. You can notice it in the century-old buildings, the names that stand for a heritage of bourgeois life, the architects that represent many generations, and the atmosphere of the city that quietly ‘whispers’:

“We are still here.”

Depth, a cultivated life, elegant manners, intentional dressing—they do not require you to travel back to a previous century, nor to rigidly stick to those norms and try to make them work exactly as they were in an era where casualness has become the new standard.

All you need is to translate those ways of life into what is happening around you—and these three principles are the answer to that.

Principle #1 - Form through Appearance

This is the beginning of everything—at least in my life trajectory.

If I hadn’t come to know the term ‘classic style’, if I hadn’t developed an obsession and intention toward what I wear and how I want to be while wearing it—I wouldn’t have been able to notice the possibility of a deliberately curated life.

By starting your day—or at least by being mindful of the clothes you wear—you begin to explore the ability to shape your emotional state through the ensemble you choose.

If it’s a Sunday, and you desire to do nothing except stay in your space, do some housework for an hour, and relax with your latest book or a great film—either alone or with someone you love—then wearing an untucked, rolled-sleeve shirt in flannel during winter or linen in summer, with straight-cut trousers and white slippers at home, will do you a favor in reminding yourself that this is a time of pause.

On the contrary, if it’s Monday—if it’s a day where you need to do whatever it takes to enter your most confident state of mind, whether for a crucial meeting or for a date you’re looking forward to—then you cannot go wrong with a tailored piece that makes you feel: “I’m at the best version I can be.” (Of course, with an awareness of the context around you.)

The thing is, I don’t want to frame this as ‘classic style’ as the only way. After years of exploring style and engaging with different cultures from city to city, I’ve come to realize that there are no strict boundaries to this.

I won’t argue that classic garments—those that have stood the test of time and proven themselves over centuries, like shirts, trousers, jackets, and leather footwear—can never go wrong, as I still rely on them every day. However, with greater cultural awareness and attunement to the society around you, it becomes possible to stay in sync with others without sacrificing who you are.

(We will explore this further in next week’s issue.)

In the end, form through appearance is about sculpting your identity—or reflecting it—to remind yourself that you have control in life, in your own language, through the way you dress daily; which is, in many ways, a lost art worth reviving.

Principle #2 - Mind through Narrative

One thing that ignites my eyes with passion every time is a man or woman who possesses substance beyond the surface.

Again, Milan has shown me how ‘alluring’ it is when an individual truly cultivates their mind with knowledge, wisdom, and ideas in their own unique way—whether through art, cinema, or literature…mediums that contain depth within them.

As I’ve already laid out in the latest editorial, our current era is one of the hardest in which to sit still and focus on what requires delayed gratification—what needs time to absorb, and what demands that you stay with an idea in contemplation. However, the one who is able to do so will be the one who thinks and lives differently from the masses.

This is not about snobbish behavior—far from it. It’s not to say that reading the late works of Italo Calvino or the philosophy of Niccolò Machiavelli is a ‘superior status’ to scrolling an Instagram feed (though it may be, in an empirical sense), but rather about a nourished mind—one that serves you far better in life by choosing to engage with mediums that challenge you, require discipline, demand critical thinking, and most importantly, allow you to slow down from the dynamic tempo of your surroundings.

It shifts the way you see things, the way you navigate your relationship with the modern world, and the way you speak with others—a life that shows proof of cultivation through your own words. Speaking of such, there are many forms of wisdom, and if you ask me where to start—cinema is what I would recommend.

True cinema is more than motion pictures that exist for mere entertainment—it is a way to experience the worldview of an individual, portrayed through hours of narrative. It is meant to give you a pure vision of the creator and allow you to immerse yourself in it—the response, the receptivity, is on your side; and that’s what makes it magical.

• Alain Resnais made you see the fragmented remnants of war through the tension of love between two wounded individuals

• Martin Scorsese made you feel the life of underworld figures, where nothing is entirely black nor fully white

• Alfred Hitchcock made you submit to whatever he wanted you to feel—glamour, obsession, suspicion—all carefully constructed through his lens

Cinema—especially during the mid-20th century—is where my mind first, and perhaps endlessly, expanded into various fields of knowledge: style, history, philosophy, art—they all began with this medium.

No matter which path you choose, make sure it serves as the cultivation of your inner world—even when it is not comfortable to do so.

Principle #3 - Culture through Exposure

For this, I have already laid it out fully in another piece—so here, I would like to focus on the impact of what happens when you begin to treat travel as cultural observation.

Humans learn through exposure to what surrounds them—every learned behavior begins with encountering something new: a perspective, an idea, a way of seeing. And nothing does this better than placing yourself in an environment that requires you to embrace novelty.

When you travel—when you live, even briefly, in a place you have never experienced before, meeting people of different backgrounds, languages, and ways of life—you gradually absorb these elements and crystallize them within yourself.

A simple reference: Milan taught me the way of luxury, and completely reshaped how I understood the term.

For a long time, I despised it, seeing it as a shallow expression of status. That perception shifted when I witnessed how it actually lived—an elegant signorina in a camel coat from Valentino Garavani, walking casually through her day, or a senior gentleman with slicked-back hair in a navy suit from Kiton, holding a newspaper and sipping espresso at a café on a Sunday morning.

Those images transformed my understanding entirely. I carried that perspective back with me to Bangkok—where the city remains the same, filled with intensity, material energy, and sensory overload—but I now understand that the issue is not the material itself, but the inner quality of the individual and their relationship with what they own.

Had I not been exposed to that way of life in Milan—how luxury truly operates there—I would not have been able to see it as I do now. And this is only one shift. There are many more: culinary traditions, the making of Italian dishes, aperitivo culture, the way of seeing art from classical to postmodern…

All of it happens through seeing travel as a way to absorb culture.

These three principles—I can guarantee by my own hand—serve as anchors for living a deliberate life in our current era. It is about looking to the past, observing more than reacting, and thinking more deeply about ideas as part of everyday life.

And wherever you are reading this, wherever you live in the world—this trio is applicable to you, just as it has been to me.

“Culture is no longer organized primarily by human editors, critics, teachers, or institutions—but by algorithms deciding relevance and visibility.” — Ted Striphas

Before I begin, take a moment and look around.

What do you see?

There is no single answer. Some of you may see an empty room filled with objects, like mine. Others may see people passing by if you’re sitting in a café somewhere in the city.

But let me change the question:

When you pick up your phone—or any connected device—what do you see?

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the reality we are now living in. Not merely physical time and space, but a constant loop—an endless stream of information, a steady bombardment of stimuli, and continuous exposure to the curated lives of individuals across the globe.

This is what we might call algorithmic culture—a landscape where your attention is continuously shaped by machines.

Platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube are not neutral windows into reality. They are systems engineered to decide what deserves your attention next.

Every swipe, pause, like, and second of watch time becomes data. The system studies your behavior and feeds you more of what keeps you engaged. So while it feels like casual scrolling, what is actually happening is far more precise: a machine is learning how to hold your attention.

Over time, that process begins to influence what you notice, what you care about, and eventually, what you become interested in.

If you step back, three forces quietly shape this entire experience:

• Constant exposure

• Comparison

• Casual consumption

First, there is constant exposure—the stream that never ends.

In older forms of media—books, television, radio, even newspapers—there were natural stopping points. You finished the page. The episode ended. The broadcast stopped.

Today, there is no such boundary.

You scroll, and something appears. Then something else. Then something else again. You never quite know what comes next—it might be dull, or it might be captivating. That uncertainty is precisely what keeps you engaged.

As a result, attention stops being something you deliberately direct and becomes something that reacts to whatever appears in front of you.

Then there is comparison, far more powerful than most people realize.

Humans have always compared themselves to others—it is part of how we understand our place in the social world. But historically, that comparison was limited: friends, family, colleagues.

Now, your mind is exposed to the most successful, attractive, wealthy, and productive individuals across the entire planet. And algorithms amplify these extremes because they capture attention.

On platforms like Instagram, what rises to the surface is rarely ordinary life—it is the highlight reel of human existence.

When you consume that repeatedly, your mind begins measuring your life against those exaggerated standards. This creates emotional responses—envy, admiration, ambition, insecurity—and those emotions keep you engaged.

Which, in turn, gives the system exactly what it needs to continue.

Finally, there is casual consumption.

Modern content requires almost no effort. No preparation. No patience. No commitment. You glance at something for a few seconds and move on.

Historically, developing a genuine interest required effort—reading deeply, practicing consistently, studying over time. Now, within minutes, you can encounter dozens of topics: psychology, business, philosophy, fitness.

This accessibility is, in some ways, progress.

But it produces a subtle side effect: people develop many shallow curiosities, but very few deep interests.

Put these three forces together—constant exposure, comparison, and casual consumption—and you create one of the most powerful feedback loops the human mind has ever encountered.

• The stream keeps your attention moving.

• Comparison injects emotion.

• Ease removes resistance.

Meanwhile, the algorithm observes every reaction and refines what it shows you next.

And here is the uncomfortable part:

Most people believe their interests are entirely their own—that they independently discovered what they like, what they care about, what they want to pursue.

But in a world shaped by algorithmic feeds, interests often emerge from repetition.

You see something again and again.

It becomes familiar.

Familiarity becomes curiosity.

Curiosity becomes identity.

Now, none of this means you have lost your freedom. You can still choose what to focus on. But it does mean that the environment surrounding your attention has fundamentally changed.

You are living inside a system designed to present stimuli, trigger comparison, and make engagement effortless.

So the real question is not whether algorithmic culture exists.

It clearly does.

The real question is much harder:

That is the question worth examining.

“People know what they do; frequently they know why they do what they do; but what they don’t know is what what they do does.” — Michel Foucault

At first glance, that line may seem to contradict the humanist spirit we value at Renaissance Flâneur.

But it points to something difficult—and true.

From the very beginning of life, we learn by imitation. We observe, we repeat, we adjust. We learn what is right or wrong through feedback. We understand our abilities through the responses we receive from the world around us.

In other words, we are shaped before we are self-directed.

• A language you did not invent

• A culture you did not choose

• Values you did not design

• Information you did not discover independently

Even your ability to think is built upon inherited structures—a frame you did not choose.

Yet, there was once a quiet advantage built into this condition.

Before the internet, there was still space to think.

Not because people were more conscious—they were not. Most were just as passive, just as shaped by their environment as people are today.

But the environment itself made something possible:

depth existed by default.

Information was limited. Slower. And most importantly, incomplete.

There were gaps.

• Long stretches where nothing new arrived

• No feed, no constant updates, no endless scroll

• You encountered something—and then, there was silence

And in that silence, whether one intended it or not, the mind had to process. To reflect. To sit with what it had absorbed.

Now, try to imagine that same process under constant informational pressure.

It does not happen naturally anymore.

And yet, even as noise increased throughout the past century—with radio, television, and mass media—there were still individuals who preserved depth.

Figures like Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla did not think deeply because their era was quiet.

They thought deeply because they structured their lives to allow depth.

They created distance. They protected attention. They practiced, whether consciously or not, a form of resistance to distraction.

That distinction matters.

Because it means the problem is not exposure itself—but the absence of boundaries.

And so, while you cannot remove the influence of the external world—you never could—the responsibility shifts elsewhere.

Your mind is still yours.

Your discernment still matters.

The task is no longer to avoid influence, but to decide which influences are allowed to remain.

This is not easy. And it is no longer automatic.

In earlier centuries, focus and depth were often the byproducts of one’s environment. Today, the environment works against them.

Platforms are designed to fragment your attention—to keep you moving, reacting, consuming. If you want clarity, if you want depth, you cannot passively arrive there.

You have to choose it.

That means deciding what you pay attention to.

Designing how you live.

And, at times, moving against the direction of the crowd.

And yes—there is discomfort in that.

You are, in effect, stepping outside a system built to entertain and stimulate you without pause.

But this is not a call to austerity.

It is not a rejection of beauty, or sociability, or the pleasures of modern life.

Nor is it the hollow discipline promoted by hustle culture, where life is reduced to output and performance.

What this requires is something quieter, more deliberate, more refined:

• A way of living that preserves elegance while resisting excess.

• A form of discipline that does not strip life of its texture, but restores its depth.

In the classical sense, it is nothing less than an art de vivre—practiced not loudly, but precisely.

First, it begins with a shift in posture: From participant to observer.

Let me offer something personal.

Before I spent an extended period in Milan, I had a particular relationship with my hometown—Bangkok.

I rejected it.

From where I stood then, Bangkok felt chaotic, status-driven, lacking in cultural depth or refinement. It operated on a frequency that felt misaligned with my own—and I wanted distance from it.

But distance, as it turns out, changes perception.

In Milan, I became a stranger.

I could not fully understand the language. I did not share the same cultural instincts. Even in places like Porta Venezia, I moved through the city without the ease of belonging.

And that was a gift.

Because I was no longer automatically involved, I began to observe.

I noticed how people dressed—not just what they wore, but how it aligned with context.

I saw how architecture shaped the rhythm of daily life.

I paid attention to how luxury functioned—not as display, but as integration into the environment.

For the first time, I was not reacting to a place.

I was studying it.

And that shift—from reaction to observation—changed something fundamental.

When I returned to Bangkok, the city itself had not changed.

But my way of seeing had.

It was still fast. Still status-driven. Still saturated with comparison and noise.

But I no longer resisted it.

I understood it.

There was no frustration, no impulse to reject—only a clearer recognition:

Every city expresses a certain logic.

And the role of a thoughtful person is not to escape that logic entirely, but to ask:

Why does it function this way?

And how do I remain intact within it?

This, perhaps, is the first real step in reclaiming control within modernity.

Not entirely withdrawal.

But intentive observation.

From there, a second quality begins to emerge: The cultivation of taste.

If algorithms show you what captures mass attention, then stepping away from that cycle creates space for something else—something quieter, more deliberate.

You begin to develop preferences that are not dictated by immediacy.

And yes, this often takes form in certain images:

• A quiet morning in a café with a book.

• Clothing that reflects both context and personal restraint.

• An evening conversation that unfolds slowly, without urgency.

But these are not the substance.

They are only expressions.

What lies beneath is more demanding.

It is the discipline to choose what you consume, rather than passively receiving it.

The ability to sit with boredom, without immediately escaping it.

The willingness to think—slowly, deliberately—rather than constantly reacting.

In a world designed to fragment attention, this becomes a form of quiet resistance.

Not loud. Not performative.

But precise.

And while it may appear subtle from the outside, it is, in truth, a radical shift:

From being shaped by your environment—to beginning, carefully, to shape yourself within it.

“For the perfect flâneur, for the passionate spectator, it is an immense joy to set up house in the heart of the multitude…” — Charles Baudelaire

The flâneur, as Baudelaire described him, moved through a rapidly modernizing world without being consumed by it.

• He was not wandering for appearance.

• He was not performing distance.

• He was present—fully aware—yet internally composed.

• He saw everything: the crowd, the movement, the stimulation.

But he did not surrender to it.

That distinction matters more now than ever.

Because your environment today—through platforms like Instagram and TikTok—is not entirely different in nature, only in intensity.

Where the 19th-century city overwhelmed the senses, the modern feed does so continuously.

But the real difference is this:

Most people no longer observe.

They are absorbed.

They scroll, react, compare, and internalize—often without noticing it happening.

The flâneur represents the opposite stance.

Not withdrawal.

Not superiority.

But distance with awareness.

Or more precisely: Detachment without alienation.

Across cities—Milan, Rimini, Vienna, and Bangkok—I began to understand something quietly consistent: To live as a flâneur is not to escape modernity. It is to remain intact within it.

Once you stop resisting the modern world as if it were an error—and begin to see it as an environment—you can finally engage it with clarity.

You observe its patterns.

You understand its incentives.

And, most importantly, you stop reacting to it automatically.

That is where control begins.

So if there is one thing to leave you with, it is this:

But that does not remove the responsibility.

If anything, it makes it more necessary.

To live well—to approach anything resembling an art de vivre—requires a simple but demanding shift:

• To stop reacting to noise, and to begin thinking in your own voice again.

• To decide, deliberately, what is worth your attention.

• To shape, rather than inherit, your way of living.

That is the work.

And that is why the flâneur—the figure who neither withdraws from modernity nor dissolves into it—is not outdated, but essential.

In that piece, I spent time deeply crystallizing the true meaning of ‘craftsmanship’ and the value behind a sartorial piece — that ‘artistry and design’ are also a great part of what makes a garment ‘meaningful’. And that has led to the current issue you’re going to discover.

Suits — tailoring as a whole — are a form of clothing that has stayed with civilization for many centuries by now. Timelessness is the term usually brought up to describe the allure of this type of garment — that it can stand through the test of time, transcend borders across multiple cultures, and always have a place in a gentleman’s wardrobe.

Well, I couldn’t disagree with that.

From the experience of traveling and living in multiple cities — not many, but several significant capitals — I can guarantee that ‘sartorial garments’ always have a place everywhere (though you might need to learn the social cues and language of each city — which I once articulated about Milan in this editorial).

However, to say that it’s ‘permanent’ in form, that it is always stable in silhouette — is far from the truth. What gentlemen wore sartorially in the 19th century was unlike what appeared in the early 20th century; such as when the coat had been displaced by just an inner coat or the jacket. Or the early 20th century, when the ‘structure’ of a full suit or jacket carried a full drape — compare that to the mid-century, when it had been tapered, with shifts in details such as jacket lapel size and slimmer trousers.

Let alone the 70s, 80s, and 90s (the last decades of tailoring as a norm) — each with a distinct silhouette of its own — due to the emergence of numerous fashion designers who influenced even the so-called ‘permanent style’ that men had held onto for centuries.

So what I would like to convey is that ‘classic menswear’, in the format of tailoring garments, has always been changing — since its emergence as attire for the modern world during the 19th century, to its peak during the 20th, and… unfortunately, its decadence in the 21st — in which it remains a niche for a very small portion of discerning few.

The big question is:

Certainly, there is the natural human inclination toward casualness — in which, when there is no rule or societal norm expecting one to wear tailoring anymore, there is no reason to carry more burden on the body than necessary. Or the rise of mainstream styles such as streetwear, the minimal ‘Silicon Valley’ style as the new status symbol, or athleisure — influences that now dominate the real scene in mainstream media.

But if ‘clothes’ are a medium of non-verbal communication in their own right — always reflecting the identity, virtue, and beliefs of the individual — then what are those ‘qualities’ that modern mainstream styles actually contain? And what has ‘tailoring’ failed to achieve in comparison?

That — is what we’re going to investigate.

It has been three centuries since the birth of ‘modern menswear’ that we see men wearing on the street today. It all started with the iconic dandy — George Bryan “Beau” Brummell. An aspiring member of the middle class from London, he shifted the whole ‘approach’ of putting clothes onto the body — beginning with the upper class, and then gradually influencing the middle one.

By adhering to ‘simplicity’ rather than ‘extravagance’, Beau Brummell created the blueprint for classic menswear we are familiar with today — the idea of wearing an outer layer with matching trousers, an inner shirt, and decorative neckwear. The ‘gentleman’s attire’ seen throughout the 20th century was, in many ways, the by-product of his ‘invention’.

Moreover, the idea of the ‘gentleman’ — a term once reserved for a specific bloodline and obtained only by birth — became democratized for the aspiring middle class. It transformed into a set of virtues: a sense of chivalry and character that society came to admire. That is why, during the Golden Age of Hollywood in the 1930s–50s, the leading men of that era almost always embodied their own version of the ‘gentleman’ in their characters. Cary Grant, Fred Astaire, David Niven, Gregory Peck… and many others. Their attire — well-cut suits with fuller silhouettes that enhanced their masculine frame, side-parted hairstyles, and polished leather footwear — became visual symbols reflecting their character (or at least the character the industry wanted audiences to look up to).

The thing is, as society progressed, its landscape of norms, paradigms, and values began to shift — challenged by new generations along the way.

In the early to mid-20th century, Western society still carried strong remnants of Victorian-era norms. Men commonly wore suits in public, speech and behavior were restrained, and social life followed clear rules of etiquette. Hollywood films such as North by Northwest projected the ideal of the composed, disciplined gentleman — someone elegant, emotionally controlled, and socially polished. Even the less polished continental cinema of the 1960s still portrayed that idea and style, though with more rawness and grit born from post-war anxiety and existential crisis.

However, the first major rupture arrived with the counterculture of the 1960s. Fueled partly by opposition to the Vietnam War and energized by the ideals of the Civil Rights Movement, young people rejected the cultural codes of their parents. This rejection was reflected in hippie culture, which openly dismissed suits, short hair, and rigid etiquette, replacing them with jeans, long hair, and a philosophy centered on personal freedom and authenticity.

Another break came in the 1990s with the rise of Silicon Valley and the technology sector. Tech culture deliberately rejected traditional corporate formality, embracing casual clothing and an anti-establishment aesthetic. Figures like Steve Jobs made minimalist casual attire — such as the now-famous black turtleneck and jeans — acceptable even at the highest levels of business leadership. For the first time, elite status was no longer signaled by polished presentation but by indifference to it. Wealth and influence no longer required looking refined; intellectual ability and innovation became the new markers of status.

The final stage arrived with the internet and social media in the 2000s and 2010s. Platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok rewarded immediacy, emotional openness, and casual expression. Public figures began interacting with audiences in ways that would have been unthinkably informal in earlier decades. (As seen in how Hollywood icons of the New Millennium present themselves, compared to those of the Golden Age.)

So, one could say that in the mid-century world, the ideal virtue was to behave with composure and refinement regardless of personal feelings. By contrast, modern culture prizes self-expression and relatability — even when they come at the expense of formality or restraint.

Thus, the disappearance of the ‘suit’ as a daily fundamental garment becomes logically justified.

Again, clothes are never just clothes. They are symbols that broadcast alignment with a value system. When the values change, the symbol loses its signal.

The suit once worked because it communicated three things that society respected:

In the mid-20th century, institutions dominated life—corporations, governments, banks, and universities. A suit signaled membership within those systems. Someone dressed like Cary Grant represented competence, discipline, and trustworthiness. Society placed enormous value on appearing controlled and dignified.

Dressing formally showed that you understood social rules and respected them. We can think of it as conforming to a shared standard of adulthood.

But in the 2020s, the cultural ground beneath those meanings shifted.

Institutions lost prestige. Corporations, banks, governments, and media organizations have steadily lost public trust over the past few decades. When institutions stop commanding admiration, their uniforms stop carrying prestige. Wearing a suit can begin to feel like dressing as part of a system people distrust.

Moreover, the cultural value system has moved toward authenticity and individuality. Modern identity is expected to be personal and expressive. The suit does the opposite—it standardizes appearance. Everyone in a suit looks like they belong to the same tribe. For a culture obsessed with uniqueness, that can feel restrictive.

Another factor is that new power no longer requires suits. Technology culture reshaped professional aesthetics. Leaders like Steve Jobs made simple, repetitive clothing—jeans and a black turtleneck—into a symbol of intellectual focus rather than corporate conformity. If the richest and most innovative people in the world do not wear suits, the aspirational signal weakens.

A final factor is that the internet shifted status toward creativity and visibility rather than formality. Platforms like TikTok and Instagram reward distinctive aesthetics and personality. A suit, in its traditional sense, is designed to suppress individuality rather than amplify it, so it performs poorly in an attention-driven culture.

The suit didn’t fail aesthetically—it failed symbolically.

It communicates alignment with hierarchy, discipline, and institutional authority. The dominant culture of the 2020s instead values flexibility, individuality, and personal branding.

The deeper irony is that the suit still works perfectly well in environments where hierarchy and power remain central—high finance, diplomacy, and certain cities (such as Milan). It hasn’t vanished; it has simply retreated into the places where the old values still operate. But those are now among the only places where ‘classic menswear’ staples—such as a jacket and trousers in the same fabric—retain their natural context.

In daily life, the suit is rarely recognized as a fundamental garment, and is instead reserved for specific functions. Which means tailoring garments today—suits included—must transcend the idea of the ‘old-world perception’: formality, rigidity, strictness. Not to say that these virtues of a bygone era are not admirable—but for tailoring to survive and be carried into the new era, the form must adapt.

Attempts can already be seen—with evident success—through new-generation sartorial brands such as The Anthology, Rubato, and Saman Amel. Still, these remain names largely familiar only within the circle of classic menswear enthusiasts.

For the idea of tailoring to break through and survive among people of the 2020s and beyond, it must lean toward the idea of being fashionable—no matter how fleeting, shallow, or contradictory that term may sound against the very idea of tailoring in the first place.

“Style is very different from fashion. Once you find something that works for you, that becomes your uniform.” - Tom Ford

Recently, I’ve become obsessed with Mr. Tom Ford — not because I own a whole collection of his fragrances or a sartorial garment from his label — but because of the way he was able to retain tailoring as the core element of his menswear, from his Gucci days to his own brand before he retired. When you think of Tom Ford, the image that comes to mind is always that of a well-groomed man in a black suit, wide peak lapels, and strong shoulders. Whether paired with a crisp white poplin shirt or even a western denim shirt — it’s always that look.

Now, what makes it interesting is this: Tom Ford managed to make tailoring feel relevant — even within the high-fashion world of the 21st century. This came from his idea of transforming the suit from a symbol of corporate conformity into one of power, sensuality, and cinematic glamour.

At a time when fashion was drifting toward casualness in the late 1990s, he reintroduced sharply sculpted silhouettes — broad shoulders, strong peak lapels, and a pronounced waist — combined with luxurious fabrics and a decadent, jet-set aesthetic that evoked classic Hollywood masculinity. By placing impeccably crafted tailoring back at the center of runway fashion, celebrity culture, and iconic imagery (from Gucci in the 1990s to James Bond in the 2010s), the man reframed the suit not as a relic of business dress but as an aspirational expression of confidence, seduction, and modern luxury.

And that reframing is the core essence of keeping tailoring alive in the future.

Ladies and gentlemen, I want you to look at these brands:

Husbands: A tailoring house that channels the sensual, hedonistic elegance of 1970s Paris — sharp shoulders, flared trousers, and confident silhouettes — reframing tailoring as expressive and charismatic menswear, wrapped in the cinematic atmosphere of 1970s pop culture and its existential tension.

Auralee: A vision from designer Ryota Iwai, who approaches tailoring through Japanese material innovation and softness, creating relaxed tailoring in extraordinary fabrics that feel effortless and modern — making it wearable on a daily basis for the modern man without rigid rules.

Lemaire: A global maison that integrates tailoring into a quiet, intellectual wardrobe — favoring fluid construction, muted palettes, and garments designed for everyday movement. It blurs gender boundaries and turns the idea of sartorial flair into something fluid within garments that exist beyond rigid categories.

Retori: Even this very new-born atelier on Via della Spiga brings the idea of sartorial excellence into a fresh narrative — crafting contemporary art that can be worn. The atelier integrates sophistication for the wearer in a quiet, intellectual way — whether through fabric composition or subtly unconventional silhouettes.

These names demonstrate that tailoring survives not through nostalgia or rigid tradition, but by adapting silhouette, fabric, and attitude to the rhythms of modern life — allowing it to resonate far beyond the niche circle of sartorial enthusiasts.

And that — in my humble opinion — is the only way to restore justice to the tailoring scene itself and allow style to flourish again.

Style is the way of doing something. If you add ‘personal’ into the context, then it becomes your way of doing things — one that is unmistakably yours.

Ironically, the tailoring world has somewhat diluted the idea of style into a format — a set of universal rules within a niche that forces anyone who wants to adopt the sophistication of wearing garments such as jackets or leather footwear into a strict set of practices (ones that cannot be broken — or, if they are, the community is often willing to pass judgment).

• Black = reserved for evening formal wear

• Brown cannot be paired with black

• A double-breasted jacket must always be buttoned

…and many more rules that gradually turn the idea of sartorial dress into a uniform rather than a form of personal expression.

The thing is, the brands I mentioned earlier as examples of bringing tailoring into a new realm are precisely those attempting to return tailoring to the idea of personal style — something that can once again be enjoyed in one’s own interpretation. No rigid rules, no cardinal sins.

We are entering what could be called a post-tailoring period, where classic menswear transforms into silhouettes that align with modern values — whether connoisseurs like it or not. One that erases the rigid contexts once associated with wearing a jacket, and one that no longer automatically signals hierarchy or a specific social archetype.

Which means you can wear a black jacket with brown shoes, white jeans with a navy blazer, or integrate wide contemporary silhouettes with impeccable tailoring details — all without feeling out of touch with the era, the city, or the people around you.

My time in Milan taught me a great deal about the language of style across different cities. Not every metropolis carries the same voice of ‘elegance as normal’ that the capital of Lombardy possesses. With that in mind — and with the idea that tailoring today knows no borders — achieving true elegance in the new millennium is finally possible.

Because elegance, when you look at its definition through the words of figures like Armani, Tom Ford, or Ralph Lauren, always leans toward the idea of ease and impression without neediness — the ability to be remembered without shouting to be noticed.

And what could be easier than making your clothes attuned to the people around you, without sacrificing your own identity and character?

The real idea is to understand the culture of the place you live in and the people around you — while also understanding yourself at the deepest level. When you possess that awareness, you will know what you truly want in life. And if you remain honest with it every day, pursuing it as your anchor, you will have nothing to worry about and nothing to prove to anyone.

That is when ease naturally becomes yours. And when that ease combines with tailoring adapted to the language of the city and the era — elegance becomes inevitable.

Which, perhaps, is exactly what our current society needs most.

“When you bought a designer suit — you were buying ‘luxury as status’, not pure craftsmanship.”

That’s a quote I once read from one of the most famous menswear blogs a very long time ago, when I had fully adopted tailoring as part of my everyday wardrobe. In that early period, the idea stuck with me like a cardinal rule that must never be broken. Always look for full canvas. Always look for a high armhole. Always seek the signs of “hand-finished” work or “stitch density” detailed on the garment…

Now, those things matter less — probably less than the feeling the garment itself gives me.

The one thing I still deeply believe in is craftsmanship — that a garment must not be fabricated purely from the mindset of consumption and compromise. I still favor bespoke pieces from ateliers like Cifonelli, Rubinacci, or Anderson & Sheppard. Even RTW sartorial brands that stand as the pinnacle of tailoring, like Cesare Attolini…

However, the other thing I now consider — and add to the equation — is artistic design injected into the garment. Something that influences the silhouette and the emotion of the wearer in the way that the designer as an individual has envisioned.

This can be seen in this editorial piece — in my love for a black jacket from Prada from the early 2000s.

On paper, it rejects almost everything that should make a jacket great: black, half-canvassed, low armholes, fine worsted fabric worn as an odd jacket rather than part of a full suit.

But all of that was intentional.

They are the byproduct of how Miuccia Prada envisioned a man — how he should look and feel. A man who knows how to navigate elite social spaces with emotional detachment, wearing tailoring that reflects discipline, austerity, and quiet authority. Someone associated with 1960s European modernism.

And that narrative is tied to an identity — or fantasy — I would love to step into. Even though, on the traditional sartorial “checklist,” it is far from the best garment I own. (If you wonder why that’s the case, this editorial will clarify everything.)

At first, I believed the appreciation mainly came from the fact that I acquired these vintage pieces from 90s–2000s designer labels like Prada, Giorgio Armani, and Gucci (pre-Tom Ford era) for less than $30.

And I thought I would never buy a piece where artistry and silhouette led the design more than craftsmanship — at least not at full retail price.

Again, I was wrong.

Because the main acquisition on my wardrobe list this year will be a suit from Husbands — now widely recognized in both the classic menswear world and the fashion-forward scene.

What impressed me is that many sartorial connoisseurs — people who obsess over terminology and hail craftsmanship as the ultimate virtue — have completely surrendered to the alluring sexual tension and cinematic aesthetic of Husbands. They became customers of the atelier, even though what they receive is a machine-finished suit for $2,500.

Now, here comes the interesting part…

When you learn to look at garments through this lens — one that doesn’t entirely reject the quality and substance of making, while also allowing artistic design into the equation — you begin to see clothes as a form of dream, life, and art.

Except this form of art can actually be equipped into the physical realm — worn on your body, every single day.

And that… is what makes life so much more interesting to live.

Because it makes you understand the strange creature called human a little more.

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to bring in the story of a man — Ralph Lipshitz, or the one you’re more familiar with as Ralph Lauren.

Even people who aren’t particularly into clothes, fashion, or personal style have likely heard his name — and perhaps even own a polo shirt with his iconic pony logo on it.

What makes him interesting is that, from a very young age, clothes were always a bridge to fantasy — to a life he never had the chance to live. When you are born in the Bronx, while surrounding yourself with media like Golden Age Hollywood films and occasional glimpses of the finer things in life — things that are just within eyesight, yet impossibly far to grasp — the easiest way to experience those fantasies is simply to dress like the people who live them.

And since then, the Preppy / Ivy League look, the WASP culture of the Hamptons, and the mythology of the American frontier have all become characters within his universe. These worlds were gradually expanded into the collective imagination of people globally — all of them condensed into the small pony logo placed on a piqué polo shirt, an Oxford button-down, or the crest on a club blazer.

Now, one critique that classic menswear purists often raise is this:

A garment that carries a high price purely because of a logo is not worth the money.

And I still agree with that — mostly.

However, I would add one important condition: a high price due to a logo that contains no designed substance.

Because even though Ralph Lauren — including its Polo Ralph Lauren line — is now produced at a lower standard and at a far larger scale than during its prime years in the 1980s, the design language itself has remained remarkably consistent.

It is still classic menswear — interpreted through Ralph Lauren’s lens.

From the polo shirt to the double forward-pleated chinos, to the double-breasted blazer — of course, the silhouette shifts slightly with time and trend. But the core essence remains unchanged: garments designed to feel timeless.

As for the pony logo itself — it is perhaps the simplest symbol of his entire world.

His childhood fantasy.

His dream of a life far beyond everyday mundanity.

It became the mechanism through which he scaled that imagination to the masses.

You might be drawn to that world — or you might not.

But one thing is undeniable: it proves that clothes, symbols, and design can transcend their physical function and become a gateway to something larger.

That said, the logo is not the only format I want to talk about — in fact, it is merely the most obvious and empirical one.

The true meaning, the real sophistication, lies in the designer themselves.

And unfortunately for Ralph Lauren — no matter how much I adore the world he created and the campaigns that present it — when it comes to artistry and design within the garments themselves, they rarely push beyond the established norm while still maintaining elegance.

Because at the end of the day, most of his pieces are still classic garments, simply elevated with the emotional appeal of how high society might wear them.

My true realization that the sartorial world could exist outside its traditional scope came through American media — though the man designing the clothes was from the European continent.

Richard Gere in American Gigolo, wearing a variety of ensembles by Giorgio Armani, completely blew my mind and shifted my worldview of what tailoring could be.

Soft.

Relaxed.

Effortless.

For both for the man wearing it and for the people around him.

When the film introduces his character, with Call Me by Blondie playing in the background, we see him driving a Mercedes‑Benz SL R107 through Los Angeles. He moves through the city in jackets and trousers that feel miles away from the rigidity of traditional tailoring.

• The fabrics flow with every movement.

• The structure is soft — but never careless.

• A louche silhouette that perfectly suits the character.

Across nearly two hours of the film, we are given something close to a masterclass in styling: tone-on-tone dressing, seamless movement between casual and formal attire, and a wardrobe entirely shaped by Armani’s vision.

And surprisingly, years later, I had the chance to see that vision in the flesh.

It was pure luck that I decided to visit the Pinacoteca di Brera during the exhibition Giorgio Armani: Milano, per amore.

(The exhibition runs until May 3rd, 2026 — in case you want to experience it with your own eyes.)

The concept of the exhibition is simple but powerful: iconic designs from Armani’s career — from the 1980s through his later collections — placed alongside the museum’s historic masterpieces.

And I must confess something slightly heretical.

It captivated me more than the Caravaggios and other Renaissance masters surrounding them.

I walked through the exhibition again and again, studying each ensemble — both menswear and womenswear — from every possible angle. Observing the fabric choices, the silhouettes, the intentions behind the designs from different eras.

The piece I spent the most time with — the one I photographed repeatedly and felt almost tempted to touch — was a suede, single-breasted unconstructed jacket.

The very one worn by Richard Gere during the quiet disclosure scene after a rough day of work with his business associate in American Gigolo.

After hours of absorbing Armani’s artistry, a question slowly emerged in my mind:

What is craftsmanship, actually?

Is it purely the use of natural materials and traditional garment construction?

Or can craftsmanship also be achieved through the discipline of vision — through the act of creating garments that remain absolutely faithful to that vision?

Because many of Armani’s pieces, even from the mid-1980s through the early 1990s, were not made exclusively from pure wool or other traditionally “noble” materials. Many contained blends — viscose, rayon, or other fibers combined with wool, linen, or silk.

But the purpose was never simply to reduce production cost or increase margins.

The goal was to achieve a specific drape — that soft, sophisticated fluidity that defined Armani’s golden era during the 1980s and 1990s.

The result became something modern and iconic:

Portraits of men moving through the world with elegance, restraint, and quiet sensuality.

All of it created from the singular vision of Armani’s mind.

Ladies and gentlemen, the idea of treating clothes as a form of expression — whether of personal aspiration or individual artistry — becomes clearer the deeper you look.

Not only among fashion-forward designer labels, but even within the world-famous ateliers of the sartorial tradition itself.

Behind the impeccable craftsmanship that many people believe they are buying, there is often something else at work. Craft is certainly present — essential, even — but perhaps it is not the only reason, and arguably not the main reason, people are drawn to these houses.

• Liverano & Liverano sells a sculptural silhouette that gives the wearer access to the lineage of Florentine tradition.

• Rubinacci sells the spirit of La Dolce Vita — the nonchalant elegance of Italian life expressed through their original Neapolitan style. A tailoring that is light not only in structure, but in the lifestyle it represents.

• Cifonelli sells the pinnacle of Parisian high life, reflected through the grandeur of the Marbeuf pagoda shoulder, the suppressed waist, and the bold lapel line.

They are all, in their own way, narrative-driven.

And that realization confirms something important:

The things that cover our bodies are far more than simple regulators of temperature.

The narrative behind clothes reflects the ideas, desires, dreams, and visions of their creators. And when you wear them — whether consciously or not — those narratives begin to integrate with your own identity.

In that sense, dressing well is not simply about technical perfection. It is about alignment.

An awareness of who you want to be, and the ability to recognize garments that reflect that identity — both through their craftsmanship and through their design language — while also understanding the context in which you move through the world.

Because elegance is never isolated from circumstance.

It adapts to the city you live in, the people around you, the rooms you enter, and the stories you wish to inhabit.

When those elements come together — craft, design, narrative, and self-awareness — clothing becomes something far greater than fabric and construction.

It becomes a medium through which a person expresses their place in the world.

And perhaps that is the true purpose of tailoring:

Not simply to make a man look well-dressed…

but to help him become the person he imagines himself to be.

When I was searching for a place to stay during the Milan winter, I came across an apartment on Airbnb. At first glance, it had everything you would expect: a prime location between Porta Venezia and Porta Romana, with trams, metro lines, and easy access to Centrale and Linate. But what drew me in wasn’t convenience—it was presence.

From the images alone, something felt different. While many Milanese interiors lean toward a polished, post-war modern aesthetic, this space carried a deeper sense of intention. Every object seemed considered, every corner curated. It wasn’t just decoration—it was expression. And through that expression, I was led to the man behind it: Alessandro Brunelli.

Alessandro—Ale—is Milanese by birth, with a quiet charisma that was already evident in our first exchanges on WhatsApp, while I was still in Bangkok. But what truly intrigued me came later, when we exchanged Instagram profiles. I noticed his background in engineering—structured, rational—but paired with something seemingly at odds: contributions to Style Magazine, and a global art platform, ITISARTIME, followed by hundreds of thousands.

That contrast stayed with me.

So I decided that before my time at his residence came to an end, we needed to sit down—not just for a casual chat, but for a proper conversation. And not just anywhere, but in his own salon on Via Francesco Guicciardini, over a glass of Sicilian wine. To talk about art, life, and the role of passion in shaping a human existence.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you—Signore Alessandro Brunelli.

Patrick:

Before we even met, you gave me your Instagram, and I stumbled onto the account: ITISARTIME. What’s the story behind it?

Alessandro Brunelli:

It started in 2014, when I was 24—much younger than now, unfortunately. At that time, I needed something new in my life. I had already been collecting art for five years, and I was coming out of another project—the university page called “Spotted.”

It was a funny concept: people would write about someone they “spotted” at university. It wasn’t stupid—more like playful, romantic, and a little chaotic. But in the end, I had issues with a colleague who ran the pages with me, and I decided to step out of that business. Even if it was quite profitable, I gave full ownership to my ex co-founder and chose to start again from zero.

The key point is that Spotted wasn’t born from passion. It came from identifying a market opportunity. It was business—an idea we tested. Not a hobby, not something I loved. And I realized: if I’m starting from scratch again, I need something that truly excites me, so I can give 100% of myself. Because in the previous experience, I didn’t give everything—and I could feel it.

At that moment, art was the most important thing in my life outside university. And I thought: why not open a page where I can share what I genuinely like? In those years, everyone was sharing holidays and selfies. I wasn’t interested in showing off my life, but I did want to communicate something.

So I opened ITISARTIME. At the beginning I posted what I bought at auctions and what I collected, hoping to find people with the same passion, maybe even the same artists. But honestly, after three or four months, it felt like a big failure. The art I collected was too niche—mostly Italian artists from the post–Second World War period. If you know it, it’s interesting. But on social media, it doesn’t always hit immediately.

That’s when I understood there was a bigger potential outside my niche. And I realized something important: I didn’t need to show what I owned. My real need was to communicate what I was discovering—what I was seeing in the world, even if I would never be able to buy it. So I switched from showing my collection to curating what I found around me.

From that point, I started studying art online seriously. I spent hours—nights—after work and after university, searching for the best artists, new artists, fresh work. I tried to understand how dynamic the market was, and where it was going. It took effort and discipline, but people started to appreciate it. The audience grew constantly, and the growth was impressive.

After some years, I became one of the main art pages in Europe, maybe even in the world—not for historical art, but for new work, pushing young artists. And I always wanted to challenge that cliché we have in Italy, when people look at monuments and say: “We were so deep back then, and now we’re nothing.” Of course, Michelangelo and Leonardo happen once in a century. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t something incredible today. The world is more complex now—we just have to find what is worth looking at.

So I dedicated my leisure time—almost my life—to finding what works: collaborating with other pages, meeting artists, understanding them better, explaining them better. And that’s how we arrive at today: around 720k followers, a big community. It still impresses me every day, and it makes me proud of the research I’ve done for more than ten years.

Patrick:

If there’s one word for what you do, it’s “curation.” And you touched something important: doing business from passion versus doing it from market demand—but we’ll come back to that later.

For now—when people think of art, especially conservative people, they think of classic works—Renaissance painting, the big museums. I just visited the Pinacoteca di Brera yesterday—beautiful, grand, intense. In France, maybe people think of Impressionism: Monet, Degas. But you’re saying art isn’t only about looking backward. In your definition, what does art mean to you personally?

Alessandro Brunelli:

For me, art is not a strict definition or one concept. It’s more about emotion. Art can be almost anything that moves something inside you—something ordinary life doesn’t move.

If you feel a strong impression—positive, negative, deep—then someone has taken something from a standard level to a higher level. That can be painting and sculpture, of course, but it can also be photography, literature, even food. Art is a different kind of communication: it makes you absorb something in a way you don’t normally absorb it.

For me, art is a vector of communication. It tells you: this message, this activity, this object—it was done with excellence, at a level beyond the usual. Sometimes I can’t even explain why something is good, but my feeling recognizes it. My emotion recognizes it. And when that happens, I say: “This is real art.”

It can be like a three-Michelin-star dish, or a painting. You can’t fully explain it, but you can recognize it in different sectors. The common thread is exactly that: emotion moved by excellence. And that’s how I interpret art.

Patrick:

So if someone wants to actually appreciate art—really connect to it—how should they approach it? Because people go to museums for two reasons. One is to truly appreciate the work. The second is to take a photo and post it—proof they were there. But many of those people don’t know how to engage with the piece. In your case, if there’s a painting in front of you, what should a “normal person” do to understand or connect with it?

Alessandro Brunelli:

There’s something called the Stendhal effect—when you’re in front of an artwork and you feel an overwhelming emotion. Some people cry. Some people feel almost an “attack,” like they can’t explain what’s happening. That’s exactly the concept I mentioned.

So first: give yourself time. Look at details. Respect the artwork by slowing down. You make yourself smaller and you let the artwork become bigger. You put yourself in a humble position—almost like you’re “naked” in front of art. That’s how you get absorbed.

I personally like going to museums right at opening or near closing time, because there are fewer people. When you’re alone in front of the work, you can absorb it without distractions.

Second—and I know this is not always popular, but I think it’s necessary, especially for contemporary art—try to understand the artist’s life, their mood, what they lived, and what moved them to create that work. Some artists create their best work in the worst periods of their lives. Suffering can produce something beautiful. It’s strange, but it happens.

If you don’t understand what moved the artist, you lose part of the meaning. So: take your time, remove the ego—stop thinking about who is watching you, how you look, what photo will match your outfit. Remove everything. Be “naked” in front of art.

And then connect it to your own experience. We’re all human: we all have pain, joy, balance, imbalance. You can recognize yourself in someone else’s life. If you connect with the artist, you receive the emotion that created the work—and you make it yours. That’s my approach.

Patrick

“Naked in front of art”—I love that.

Now I want to shift to something personal. I’ve seen your routine here in Milan: you’re a key account manager in an energy sector—an engineer mindset, rational work. But art has been with you for a long time: you started the page in 2014, and you were already collecting years before that. So what keeps pulling you back to art, even with a career that could have taken you in a completely different direction?

Alessandro Brunelli:

Art taught me that everything is connected. Even if neuroscience says certain parts of the brain do different things, developing both sides helps me. It allows me to look at rational things in a more creative way—and to look at art in a more structured way.

For example, I like figurative art—art you can recognize. People say figurative art peaked in the past, like with Caravaggio, and then it’s finished. But I don’t agree. Today you can still make figurative art and inject new emotion into it. Even the choice of “white”—pure white versus a dirty white, cream, vanilla—communicates something. Maybe the light is different. Maybe the subject’s emotion is dark. These choices matter.

Caravaggio is full of emotion. His paintings are like a video frame—you can feel what’s about to happen. It’s incredible. But today, some artists can communicate emotion without the traditional technical school. That’s what I like: the contamination between two worlds—rational and creative.

As an engineer, I can also “read” figurative art more easily than abstract. Abstract often requires more context—more concept. But in general, I need both sides: when I’m too impulsive or emotional, I need rational calm; when life feels too flat, I need emotion and creativity to lift it to another level.

Patrick:

That brings me to the future of art. You mentioned figurative art evolving through a modern lens. I relate to that because my domain is fashion. I used to believe classic dressing should be exactly the same as classic menswear from the past. But after living in Milan, I realized: to keep classic style alive, it has to adapt. It has to evolve.

So the future of art—AI, digital art, all of it. What do you think? You have a teenager in a basement prompting a tool, and suddenly they generate “fantasy art” and post it. What’s your take?

Alessandro Brunelli:

This is the one-million question. It’s the biggest trend of the last decade—and maybe the most disruptive moment for art.

We already passed through NFTs, through digital art hype, and in many cases… nothing really stayed. But AI is different. And I’ll tell you my unpopular opinion: I see it as a big opportunity.

There’s a Picasso quote people love: “Good artists copy, great artists steal.” The point is: artists who are scared of AI often don’t understand that you still need to be a great artist to produce something truly impressive—even with a laptop. AI doesn’t automatically create genius. It changes the tool. It expands access.

It enlarges the group of people who can bring ideas to reality. Because many people have strong concepts in their mind but don’t have the technique. Technique is a bridge between idea and result. It’s useful—but it can also be a limit.

For me, art is first of all a message. A good painting without a message is still good. But a good painting with a message that moves you becomes a masterpiece.

Also, we were already moving toward concept long before AI. Conceptual art proved that the idea can be central. Many important contemporary artists don’t physically make the work alone—sometimes they don’t touch it at all. They direct it. The message is the core.

So why should AI scare us? It’s just a new tool, like photography was. When photography arrived, artists were terrified: “Now what do we do?” But art didn’t die. Art evolved. It found new ways to communicate emotion.

AI will do the same. It will push us into a new “blue ocean,” a new area where people create what we haven’t seen before. Genius will still be genius—maybe discovered even more. Average will remain average.

I know this opinion is unpopular. When I post AI work, people attack me and I sometimes lose thousands of followers. They say: “This isn’t real art.” But I believe it’s a tool that can reveal artists who would otherwise never be seen—people who might have become engineers instead.

Patrick:

I agree with you. The purist argument is always: “True art needs mastery, dedication, the hand.” But I think the core is perspective—an individual vision that becomes form, and that form transfers emotion.

That’s why I now admire fashion designers in a different way, especially Giorgio Armani. I went to Brera yesterday and saw an Armani exhibition—pieces from the 1980s to 2010s. Armani didn’t worship the classic menswear rules. He expressed a vision: extended shoulders, longer lines, new proportions. The technique matters, yes—but what makes it art is the idea and the emotional message.

Alessandro Brunelli:

Exactly. And if tomorrow a new technology changes tailoring, Armani is still Armani because of his ideas. If he can’t use the tool, he finds technicians who can. Same with artists: the best idea wins.

That’s why I’m not scared of new tools. I’m excited. People who are scared are often afraid of losing their position—because the field is opening. But if you already understand that concept is central, you won’t panic.

Hyper-realistic painting is a good example. I respect the technique, but it doesn’t always move me. Hyper-realism was already challenged the moment photography was invented. Art had to evolve to survive—to communicate emotion differently. AI is similar. It will force evolution, and we’ll see a new generation that can finally move from idea to reality faster.

Patrick:

Let’s widen the scope. Something I admire about Europe is how art is present in daily life. In some places, art—and wine, books, fashion—are seen as “elite.” People work 9 to 5, they’re tired, and when they have time they scroll TikTok instead of spending energy on something that “requires understanding.”

So what’s your take? Is art essential? Or is it optional—something reserved for elites?

Alessandro Brunelli:

It’s a crucial point. Collecting art with a capital “A” is still related to the elite—because if you want to invest and not lose money, usually you need to invest a lot in single works. That’s the reality. Some artists keep stable value. And galleries are businesses: if they sell a painting for 10k, they invite people who can buy. It’s not charity—it’s a market.

Also, museums sometimes cost too much compared to entertainment. Not because the ticket is crazy, but because the “effort” is higher. Cinema is easier. The museum can feel “poorer” to people because not all senses are involved, and the intellectual work is heavier.

But I love what Milan does: one Sunday a month, museums are free. That removes excuses. The risk becomes zero, and people can discover art.

The deeper issue is that people forget leisure time is valuable. We deserve to spend it well. Restaurants are comfortable: you’re served, you feel like a king, you control the experience. Museums are different: you can experience emotions that aren’t always pleasant. A painting can remind you of pain. You might leave with a bad mood. But later you understand: managing that emotion helps you grow.

So yes—art can feel elitist by nature of the market. But people also need to make an effort to go toward excellence. If both sides move—institutions creating access, and individuals choosing to engage—then art can become more open.

Patrick:

That makes sense. We live in a world of distraction. Attention disappears into scrolling, and suddenly half an hour is gone. But exposing yourself to challenging work—even uncomfortable emotions—trains you. It develops you.

Alessandro Brunelli:

And that’s why social media is the real comparison—not cinema. Social media is zero effort, zero cost, and it becomes a drug. I work on social networks too, but I try to clean the space by showing valuable things. Still, we’re in a sea where 90% is trash. That’s the reality of our moment.

Patrick:

Final question—let’s return to the beginning. You said you left a profitable project because it wasn’t passion, then you built ITISARTIME from something you loved.

In real life, we all live that tension: practicality versus passion, stability versus expression. For you—balancing engineering life with this art life—how important is passion? Do you follow it fully, or do you manage it, negotiate with it?

Alessandro Brunelli:

I want to say something positive about routine. People always say: escape routine, leave your comfort zone, live a special life. But routine is valuable. Routine is like the trunk of a tree—it gives structure, stability, resilience.

And passion is like the branches and leaves. A trunk without leaves is ugly—it’s dry. But branches without a trunk also don’t stand.

So the balance matters. Routine helps you become mature, build a family, build a project, build a life. If I only followed emotion, I would maybe be immature—or destroyed. I don’t want to stay a teenager forever.

At the same time, I see people who put 100% into routine—work, family, repetition—and they become narrow. They only have one topic: their job, their chores. That’s a poor view of life. Without passion, you lose something essential.

So I can’t give you a perfect percentage—everyone has their own balance. But the message is: routine is as important as passion. You’re obliged to yourself to use leisure time well—time for people you love, and time for what makes you alive.

Everyone has a passion, shaped by experience. We’re like tabula rasa—experience writes on us. And when you find what you love, you must go deeper. Without passion, you become like an AI agent: work, home, sleep, repeat. The AI might even do it better than you.

So you need a real reason beyond routine. Keep the routine—but don’t forget to live.

Patrick:

I love that analogy—the trunk and the branches. Because sometimes a branch can become its own tree. If you have stability, and your passion grows strong enough, maybe it becomes a new trunk—its own life.

I’ve lived both extremes. Pure routine with no branches—it felt robotic. And then I also went all-in on passion and went broke. My life is better now: I have stability, and I can fund my own creative work without begging for permission.

So yes—this feels like the clearest answer. And here we are: one hour and twenty-five minutes later. I think we got a decent conversation.

Follow Alessandro Brunelli

ITISARTIME — Instagram

Appendix:

For me, apart from meditative sessions, it’s really hard to reach that state. It seems the modern world demands that we keep moving all the time, demands us to connect, update, and “stay in touch with other people’s lives” — whether we want to or not.

The dilemma is: how do you know whether those actions are truly what you desire, if you’re not even able to stop and ask in the first place?

It seems that since the evolution of the internet and social media — and especially in this moment, where attention spans have declined to what feels like a historic low — distraction has become inevitable… and it affects life in multiple dimensions.

In the realm of work, particularly within the ‘knowledge worker’ sphere, scattered attention doesn’t allow one to sit still and focus — truly focus — on a single task with quality. Even more so when what people call ‘work’ these days often looks like entering data into a spreadsheet, while opening emails in another tab, and answering pings on Slack…

Well…I’ve lived that.

And I have no intention of saying that this modern way of working is necessarily bad. The system is simply designed that way.

But what remains unsolved is the kind of work that requires deep focus — a singular, attentive state of mind that allows an individual to push through without distraction.

“Deep Work: Professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate.” — Cal Newport, Deep Work

It’s been a while since I last mentioned Cal Newport — from one of the first self-help books I read half a decade ago — but the idea is timeless, and its validity is undeniable.

With constant distraction, the kind of work that truly matters — the kind that contributes to meaningful creation in civilization — rarely happens. And the same applies to our daily experience of life.

When your mind is wired for notifications all the time, it becomes addicted. Dopamine itself cannot distinguish what are actually meaningful; it simply responds to whatever perception it receives — reward, stimulation, novelty…

All of this leads to a quiet crisis: we can no longer allow ourselves to stay still. To observe. To live simply without feeling guilt — whether it comes in the form of “You’re not being productive” or “You’re missing out.”

I’ve felt this recently, I admit.

It’s been harder and harder to just close my eyes and focus on my breath. Harder to sit still and watch people. Harder to truly spend time appreciating the substance of things without being pulled toward the next shiny object.

Garments — sartorial pieces especially — are things I’ve accumulated them over years, whether freshly tailored or archive vintage. And while there are pieces I’ve spent real time with — like the failed suit, or the charming Prada black jacket that brings out the intellectual side of the wearer — there are many others left unexamined, unexplored.

And that’s a shame.

In the end, while clothing’s primary function is to regulate body temperature, it has always meant something beyond that. It is an object of non-verbal communication — a way to tell the world who you are without saying a word.

And the message — the essence behind that aura, those unspoken words — comes from the maker who crafted and designed it. Especially when thought, personality, and worldview are embedded into the piece… it becomes, in a sense, art.

And art has always been something that stays with humanity from the very beginning.

It’s this idea — of seeing art and clothing as part of the same cohesive language — that allows me to slow down, even within this chaotic, hyper-dynamic world.

To pause.

To become aware of what I already have in my closet, and how to integrate it aesthetically into my life — into the identity I choose to project that day.

Which leads us to the larger question we’re about to explore:

I want you to sit with me for a while and try to imagine all the things your mind actually perceives on a daily basis. From the very first moment you wake up to the last moment you try to shut it off by going to bed — how many thoughts actually occur?

Hundreds?

Thousands?

Perhaps even a hundred times more than that.

And within those tens of thousands, each thought creates its own effect. Some numb the mind. Some make you happy. Some shift your mood downward. And some chain into others — forming a web that holds onto your mind for a very long time.

What I’m trying to convey is this: even at a biological level, long before distraction became embedded into every second of modern life, the human mind has always been challenged — always disturbed.

The mind, much like the body that requires regulation to function, needs a way to recalibrate. To stabilize after the constant surge of emotions throughout the day. Especially those tied to uncertainty, fear, and pain — it will do whatever it can to release that cognitive tension, or what we might call the weight on the spirit.

And from that need, art emerged.

If we go back to the earliest stages of humanity, we already see this. Humans faced chaos: death, storms, predators, birth, hunger. They had no scientific models, no written language, no structured psychological frameworks.

What they did have was pattern recognition — and imagination.

• Painting a hunt before performing it could increase survival.

• A painted bison could outlive the storyteller — becoming a kind of proto-archive.

• Even decorating the body marked belonging, identity, hierarchy.

Art was — and is — the human refusal to remain silent in the face of mortality. It is the mark of a species aware of its own end. It began as survival technology, tribal glue, spiritual negotiation, and cognitive expansion — evidence that humans are not purely biological beings, but symbolic ones.

Then came civilization — a period where art began to serve not just psychological survival, but something deeper. A way to nourish the spirit. A way to create something greater than life itself by channeling desire into form.

• In Mesopotamia, ziggurats were not merely buildings, but symbols — an axis between earth and heaven.

• In Ancient Greece, sculpture became a study of the ideal: proportion, human excellence, philosophical beauty.

Once humans gained enough stability, they began to ask a different question:

“What is the highest version of reality we can create?”

Many of the iconic buildings, sculptures, and paintings we recognize — especially during the Renaissance — are direct responses to that question, each expressed through its own paradigm, style, and execution.

But now we arrive at a different question:

In an age where a simple sentence to AI can generate a complete visual — adjustable, instant, and endlessly reproducible — what remains of art? And does the term still matter?

Before anything else, I want to propose this:

Art was never defined by effort.

If it were, then a construction worker would be a greater artist than Marcel Duchamp for placing a urinal in a gallery. But Duchamp’s Fountain redefined art not because it was difficult to make — but because it reframed perception.

What modern technology has done is dismantle three historical pillars: technical scarcity, manual skill as gatekeeper, and time as constraint.

Cameras now assist the user to the point where the act becomes ‘press the shutter at the right frame, at the right moment.’ Generative AI allows a teenager with Wi-Fi to produce visually stunning work in seconds.

And yet — something still remains beyond automation.

Humanity.

Specifically: intention, curation, and context.

• Intention matters because it gives substance to the piece.

• Curation matters because it shapes how something is seen — through a specific lens.

• Context matters because it positions the work within a cultural and collective framework.

We are entering an era where craft is automated, aesthetics are abundant, and originality becomes statistical. The masses chase beauty, status, and — often unconsciously — distraction.

And yet, the art that still resonates, still matters, continues to serve its original function: an attempt at transcendence.

This can be seen in something as immediate and personal as clothing.

Clothing has never been just fabric. From tribal markings in the Stone Age, to royal garments, to military uniforms — it has always carried meaning. It has always expressed something about the individual and the system they belong to.

It is art, fused with structure.

For a long time, the act of making clothes carried narrative. It expressed worldview — from the creator, the wearer, or often both in collaboration.

But in recent decades, particularly with the rise of ready-to-wear since the 1970s, that dynamic has shifted. The idea of commissioning a piece and waiting months for it has gradually disappeared from mainstream behavior.

Clothing became increasingly industrialized — optimized for scale, speed, and trend cycles. These cycles, in turn, fuel the fear of missing out, especially in womenswear, and contribute to the rise of fast fashion.

As a result, on the surface — and within the hyper-exposed, monetized attention economy — clothing has, in many ways, lost its status as art.

And yet, history shows us something different:

Clothing can still act as cultural liberation — and, at times, as a form of salvation for the individual.

“All I want to do… is to create the most beautiful dress in the world.” — Christian Dior

What makes a man or a woman a “designer”?

Is it simply sketching something in the form of clothing, telling a manufacturer to produce it, and placing a fancy French word on the label?

Surely, that’s not the case.

A designer is someone who designs — but ‘design’ itself must carry purpose. It is the act of gathering thought, ideas, and inspiration, then translating them into form. Bringing something into existence that did not exist before.

Many of the names we are familiar with in fashion were designers in their own right. What they all shared was purpose.

Take Coco Chanel — shaped by loneliness, a lack of connection, and the rigid expectations of femininity in her time. She responded by redefining femininity on her own terms. Starting with hats, then perfume, then couture.

A similar weight can be seen in Christian Dior — a sensitive, delicate man whose name now lives on along Avenue Montaigne. His sense of loss — whether from the absence of his beloved sister or the grey, heavy atmosphere of Paris during World War II — became the force that drove him.

It led him toward something like salvation. He took the leap, opened his own house, and in 1947, The New Look was born. It shaped the entire 1950s — a return to optimism, glamour, divine femininity, and the revival of Parisian elegance.

And there are many more.

Ralph Lauren, who transformed his dream of a refined life into an empire — building a world people could step into.

Hubert de Givenchy, who translated aristocratic sensibility into pure elegance through form and proportion.

Clothing, in this sense, is art that nourishes the soul of its creator. It becomes a vessel for obsession, burden, longing — something internal, made tangible.

And what makes it even more special is that these emotions can be felt by the one who wears it.

But in the modern world, it has become harder to find clothing that carries this depth — without relying on the power of a label.

2026 is not 1956.

Most brands, even with creative directors shaping aesthetics and emotional narratives, lean heavily on something else:

The logo.

More than vision. More than craft. More than dedication to the garment itself.

And so the landscape of fashion becomes increasingly shallow — clothing as loud status symbols, often lacking soul, lacking passion. Not entirely different from much of what we now call “modern art”: easy to replicate, easy to mass produce, even under the name of legendary maisons.

And yet — there are still spaces, however small, that resist this.

Places that prioritize true elegance.

Places that lead with substance.

Places that refuse to compromise on artistry — where design still reflects purpose, soul, and human intention.

These ateliers are often hidden.

On quiet streets.

In Bangkok, perhaps in the Ari district.

In Paris, along Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré.

And in Milan — a street like Via della Spiga.

I had heard about this street many times before arriving in Lombardy. It was the first place I chose to walk the day after I landed.

The experience was quieter than I expected. But there was something unmistakably substantial in each storefront.

On my fourth or fifth walk along that street, within just a few weeks, I noticed something.

A passage — leading deeper into a building.

Soft daylight from a cloudy afternoon spilled across a wide window. Inside stood a female mannequin in a pink dress. Beside it, a male figure dressed in a luxurious overcoat and cravat.

I moved closer.

There was a stillness. A sense of privacy. A kind of quiet confidence in the space.

And then — my eyes caught the name:

Retori.

It seems to be a trend these days — brands, especially from the continent, often lean toward ‘art’ and ‘culture’ as an extension of their world. But very few truly resonate with the core essence of it.

Retori is one of those rare exceptions.

From the very first moment I walked in, serenity was the word that best described what I felt. If Via della Spiga already gives you that sense of an ‘insider’ street — a quiet realm of connoisseurship — then stepping through the shadow and light of the passage into the Salotto takes it even further.

Stefano, the store director, was the first person I interacted with. Without much preamble, he introduced me to “the world of Retori” — a space infused with cultural depth in every corner.

It began with the hallway, lined with paintings that set the tone. Then came the exhibition space — featuring ‘Chupim’ — art works from Manuela Navas, each carrying its own meaning. And perhaps the most striking element: a wall conceived through the architectural vision of Tadao Ando — one of the most significant architects of the modern era — whose presence could be felt in the quiet precision of the structure itself.

The reason this place is called a Salotto is because it is not treated as a mere store — not a space designed simply to extract transactions from customers. Instead, it feels like a living room. A place where life gathers, where people and ideas come into sync.

It functions as a headquarters, a lounge, and an event space for art and cultural exhibitions — all at once.

Even on my first, unplanned visit, the feeling was far from ordinary. The atmosphere, the warmth of the welcome — it already exceeded expectations.

And then came the garments.

If you’re familiar with my taste — my identity as someone deeply drawn to sartorial substance — you’ll know that material, stitching, detail, and craft as a whole play a decisive role in how I judge a piece. Whether it stands on its own merit, or leans too heavily on branding and emotional appeal.

With Retori, it walks that line — almost perfectly.

One thing I must admit: the pricing clearly places the brand within the realm of mid-tier luxury. A €1000+ cardigan or overshirt, a €1750 double-breasted jacket — these are not pieces for casual consumption. They demand thought. Intention.

But as I walked through the space, observing each garment, touching the inner canvas of jackets and overcoats, feeling the fabrics — I found myself asking:

What is the real appeal here?

Yes, the materials are exquisite. The standard of “Made in Italy” is evident at the highest level. But beyond that, I began to notice a pattern — something shared across the pieces:

A quiet, intellectual form of artistry.

Beneath what appears to be classic silhouettes, there is a subtle layer of design — almost hidden. Details that only reveal themselves to those who pay attention.

A shadowed pattern embedded within a polo shirt.

An illusion-like stitched pocket.

And most resonant to me — the fabric.

In the sartorial world, fabric is everything. It is the skin of the garment, the language through which it speaks.

Most high-quality fabrics today follow familiar paths: pure wool in high-twist weaves, pure cashmere, or refined blends — wool/silk/linen, wool/cotton, silk/linen.

But Retori’s choices feel… different.

• A pure wool overcoat with a texture resembling cashmere — offering softness without the same level of fragility.

• A denim-like fabric composed of wool and cotton.

• A melange ribbed turtleneck created from a blend of cashmere, wool, silk, and linen — producing depth that shifts with light.

• An overshirt made from an almost equal balance of silk and cashmere (a piece we’ll return to shortly.)

There is intention here. A kind of quiet experimentation.

Later, after my first visit, I was invited back by a lovely lady named Federica. She mentioned a small event happening that Saturday, and I knew I had to return.

That was when I met the CEO of the brand — Zaccheo Manzoni.

We spoke briefly, and I eventually asked him directly about the philosophy behind their collections.

His answer reframed everything.

Retori does not treat collections as mere seasonal releases. Instead, each one is conceived as a chapter.

Each chapter draws from a specific artist — their work, their philosophy — extracting meaning and translating it into every aspect of the brand: design, material, art direction.

All of it comes together as a cohesive narrative. Not just clothing, but a story. Something that carries both timelessness and emotional weight.

That was the moment I understood the essence of Retori.

And what one truly acquires when wearing their garments.

They are not just clothes. They are artifacts.

Pieces meant for a discerning few — those who approach them with intention, with appreciation, with an understanding of substance. People who wear them not just with style, but with awareness.

And so, within that Salotto, I found my own artifact.

Not the most traditionally sartorial piece I would usually gravitate toward. Not the most formal, not the most “refined” in the conventional sense.

But something more democratic.

An overshirt.

“Elegance is not about being noticed, it’s about being remembered.” — Giorgio Armani

It’s a quote that captures the essence of elegance beautifully.

And yet, I’ve never quite been able to achieve that — at least not at scale, not in the way I dress.

To not be noticed through stark contrast or loud uniqueness, yet still be remembered… it seems that to truly reach that balance, one must allow their external form to blend in, while letting the inner self radiate instead.

Noble? Ideal? Perhaps.

But is there a way to do that while still dressing in a way that feels true to oneself?

In my case, that means embracing craft. Classic, timeless garments. Cuts and proportions that echo those worn by iconic figures of the mid-century.

Here in Milan — where I’m writing this — it feels natural. The city itself carries a deeply ingrained language of style, something I’ve explored before. But what about Bangkok? What about other cities that don’t share the same sartorial fluency as Milan, London, or Paris?

How does one maintain elegance without feeling alienated?

Without being asked, “Why are you so dressed up?”

The answer, I believe, lies in choosing garments that are democratic — accessible in form — yet uncompromising in the virtues that define sartorial elegance.

If it’s jeans, then let them sit properly at the waist, made from quality denim.

If it’s a t-shirt, then let it be crafted from high-grade cotton, with intention in its construction.

And if it’s a layering piece — something that can exist seamlessly within today’s overwhelmingly casual world, across cities and climates — then perhaps that piece is an overshirt.

When I was walking through the Retori Salotto, most pieces I admired.

But this one — an anthracite overshirt made from 51% silk and 49% cashmere — stopped me.

I asked Stefano if I could try it on.

And what I saw in the mirror…

It reminded me of the first time I wore a tailored jacket, many years ago. That sudden realization — of silhouette, of presence, of identity being quietly amplified.

What stood out most was the material.

Traditionally, overshirts are made from cotton twill. Some brands elevate them with linen basketweaves, cotton corduroy, or seasonal wool and cashmere.

But this — a near-equal blend of silk and cashmere — was something else entirely.

Soft, breathable, yet structured.

Fluid, yet composed.

A fabric that drapes with intention.

It becomes a piece that can live across roles in a wardrobe without friction. Worn on its own, layered over a t-shirt or polo, or placed under a jacket — it adapts.

And more importantly, from the outside, it blends in.

Back in Bangkok, for instance, overshirts are already familiar. Across generations and professions, they are seen as understated layering pieces — nothing that triggers a sense of strangeness.

And this is where Retori’s quiet brilliance reveals itself.

From a distance, it appears simple: a deep charcoal overshirt, almost black, with double pockets.

But up close — when you look, when you touch — the details emerge.

The fabric holds a texture that is neither overly heavy nor unnecessarily light.

An illusion in the chest pocket — one visible, one hidden within the inner layer.

Subtle, but intentional.

And when you understand that this piece belongs to Retori’s second chapter — inspired by the Dutch-Indonesian artist Miko Veldkamp, whose work explores the idea of multiplicity, shaped by a life lived across cultures — everything aligns.

That idea of duality, of movement between worlds, is embedded into the garment itself.

Structure and fluidity.

Visibility and concealment.

Presence and adaptability.

And perhaps that’s why I was drawn to it.

Because, in a way, it reflects something personal — the ability to move across cities, cultures, and contexts, while remaining coherent.

Ladies and gentlemen, I believe this is where the meaning of art comes full circle.

A synchronization between life, values, the human spirit, painting — and clothing.

Art is everywhere.

It has always been part of human life. First as a tool for survival. Then as a medium for spirit, for expression, for transcendence.

And now, in a world saturated with stimulation — where attention is constantly pulled, where media rewards noise, where brands compete to extract maximum consumption from every individual — there are still places that choose to stand still.

Places that resist entropy.

Places that remain true to vision.

Retori, in my sincere opinion, is one of the few that still does so — quietly, and with grace.

So perhaps, in a world where the mind is constantly pulled in every direction, what we choose to engage with — what we choose to wear — becomes something more than aesthetic.

It becomes a way to reclaim attention. To return to a single point of focus.

And maybe, in that quiet return — is where elegance begins.

To sit still, even for a moment, within the noise.

“Substantial?”

“Yes, yes — that’s the word.”

That’s a little part of a conversation I had with my Italian friend after we had a glass of Negroni at the Four Seasons Milano… and I must say, it’s more than just a talk on the taste of individual tribe as a sartorial connoisseur…

Ladies and gentlemen, if you have ever walked along Via Montenapoleone — or if you haven’t had the chance, I want you to picture that district of your current capital that’s full of brands from LVMH and Kering — also known as “global luxury brands” — which have multiple branches and recognition all across the world. Compared to Via Della Spiga — which carries a much more “craftsman artisanal” character, while still luxury at the price point; it’s full of niche brands that emerged from a singular creative vision. Or Via Gesù — which is basically… similar to the equivalent of Savile Row in London; a street where sartorial heritage like Brioni, Rubinacci, Kiton, Cesare Attolini, Barba Napoli, Tincati and many others have been “living” on the street.

When you look into the idea of luxury — it can be interpreted in many paradigms, so one would say it’s the idea of spending a huge amount of monetary capital on an entity that goes beyond necessary — from expensive clothes, first-class tickets, exotic cars, five-star hotels… basically, the act of indulging in excessiveness.

But is that really the definition of luxury?

Because I want you to imagine… these two things that have the same price, same functional purpose — but somewhat different — a t-shirt.

One is from brands within LVMH — either the logo of “CD,” “LV,” or “Givenchy” screened on an “OK” material such as combed Supima cotton.

The other, let’s say from Gran Sasso of Italy, made by the highest industrial-standard knit procedure, with Suvin cotton (and the brand coined this term half a century ago) — a crossbreed of Sujata and Saint Vincent 35 — the combination of the two finest cottons from Indian and Sea Island origins — the best in its class…

Both cost around $200 (though I take that the one from LVMH might be higher) — but in terms of the “meaning behind the price” — the counterargument from the fashion-forward house would be, “but the high price is due to creative design and vision”… but tell me, is the idea of putting a logo on an “OK” t-shirt considered as that creative?

Compared to the other side — it’s full of real heritage, either from the manufacturer, the material, and the “true high quality” that directly justifies the price of why a single t-shirt could cost $200.

While I once wrote on the meaning of clothes that goes beyond rationale in this editorial — that clothes can play a pivotal role in giving identity and meaning to the wearer — and when it comes to that part, emotional attachment is much more at play in deciding whether one will buy it or not, and who he or she will become after getting it and wearing it.

The LVMH group mastered this. And that’s why if you travel to Asia — especially in capitals like Bangkok or Shanghai — people there, especially the aspiring middle class, love wearing the logo to symbolize who they are, more than letting artistry of design and substance of material speak…

The way of presentation that is so — excuse the assertiveness — but very shallow in a sense… and in a way that so contradicts the noble ideology of self-awareness and elegance of oneself — through substance… one that I discovered through my style journey and my own definition of luxury itself.

Luxury comes from the Latin root “Luxus” = extravagance.

Once empirically used in ancient Rome in the term of luxuria to describe the act of excessiveness — wasteful consumption. For traditionalists like government senators and philosophers of the era, luxuria meant the corruption of Roman virtue through excess. Causing soft living, foreign imports, elaborate banquets, ornate clothing — everything that weakened discipline, masculinity, and civic duty; a symptom of decline brought by imperial success, one might say. Yet as you may guess, for emperors like the notorious Nero, luxury was a performance of power: golden palaces, theatrical feasts, artistic extravagance — excess as domination.

Then, the term evolved into the doctrine of Christianity later during the Middle Ages.

When Christianity spread through the ancient Roman world, it inherited the language. Latin became the Church’s intellectual vehicle, and words like luxuria were already loaded with moral suspicion. It turned out to mean disordered desire — especially associated with sexual desire — opposing divine order. And then it became formalized within the schema of the Seven Deadly Sins under Pope Gregory I.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, if the idea of luxury is heavily associated with an “undesirable” character a human can embody — why do many of us, or perhaps all of us, lean toward it in some way or another?

The answer always goes back to human nature — the very biological thing that made us human.

In the end, our brains evolved in scarcity, wired to pursue surplus… more food, more comfort, more status. Since the Stone Age (a part of our brain that hasn’t changed), the idea of having “more” increased survival and power.

But now, it has changed form into:

• Penthouse instead of cave.

• Private jet instead of faster horse.

• Designer piece instead of exotic animal skins.

We are wired to seek surplus because surplus once meant survival and reproductive advantage.

And luxury is simply surplus amplified into signal: it advertises security, dominance, and distinction. Yet societies label it morally suspect because unchecked appetite destabilizes order, widens inequality, and erodes discipline. So the tension is structural: “biology pushes us toward accumulation and heightened pleasure, while religion and philosophy attempt to regulate that drive for the sake of stability and meaning.”

Basically, luxury is evolution’s reward system colliding with civilization’s need for stability.

And that collision will never disappear.

However, what I want to propose is another perspective — to see luxury as it is. Though it is the contradictory force between our raw, biologically based desire and the morality of the higher intellectual part of us, there is a way to approach it while keeping integrity within.

Humans naturally associate luxury with status and amplification, but most people pursue it reflexively — buying symbols that tell them who to be rather than choosing objects that genuinely reflect their values.

When a purchase becomes a two-way dialogue between object and self, rather than passive absorption of a brand’s marketing power alone, luxury stops being costume and becomes coherence. The rarest form of luxury, then, is not the logo or even the finest cashmere — it is the independence to choose based on substance instead of insecurity.

Having spent years observing how founder-led houses negotiate this tension between substance and signal, one thing becomes clear: most brands don’t lack craftsmanship — they lack articulation.

Now, the dilemma is that every great brand you’ve familair with (even though you’re not into fashion that much) seem to know too well how to “manipulate” or bend perception toward the aspirational class — on who they are going to become when you wear our brand — without giving them a real “reason” behind it. An empirical case is certainly the LVMH of the world. Yet it also includes brands that position themselves as “quiet luxury.”

This term has spread widely into a global trend in the past years — aligned with the virality of the Old Money Aesthetic on TikTok and YouTube (though in 2026, I do believe it will decrease in magnitude and relevance).

The idea is simple: use subtle palettes, minimal design, sometimes leaning toward classic garments — then present them on a WASP model, an educated high-society appearance, countryside residence in the background, classic Mercedes SL, leisure lifestyle that few can ever experience — and then “tag” the collection, or even the brand, as “quiet luxury”… “a luxury without demanding to shout.”

The thing is, they also turned the idea of “quiet” into another marketing buzzword.

Ladies and gentlemen, if we use the idea of Authentic Luxury as the baseline:

“The precision in understanding the material, the craftsmanship, the heritage — and knowing your own motives.”

Then the quiet luxury brands, most of the time, also fail to bring their customers into the substance behind why their brand is quiet.

Take Loro Piana for example.

Before the acquisition by LVMH, the brand was well known as a top-tier Italian fabric manufacturer — famous for its cashmere and sophisticated blending of materials. When the Arnault family took over the brand and turned it into a viral name associated with “quiet luxury,” tell me — how many people actually see Loro Piana as it is? As the name that symbolizes one of the most delicate and exceptional crafts?

Now, it has turned into just a brand you can use to equip the idea of “wearing quiet luxury” — but without a gateway to understand why it is quiet in the first place.

And so do these cases happen to plenty of brands — either those that truly contain heritage, or even the copycats on Instagram that replicate the design of cable knits or quarter-zip sweaters, but instead of using high-quality cotton or merino wool, reduce them to mere polyester (yes — the case of fast fashion brands).

With all these reasons — the fallacy of both luxury and fashion brands that fail to captivate the higher meaning behind the term — this is why sartorial elegance, the idea of embracing classic menswear, remains so timeless, deep, and meaningful to the wearer. Basically, it is closer to the term “quiet luxury” than what most brands represent themselves to be.

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Based on the Italian term sarto — which means tailor. This niche word has become associated with a specific type of style, which you can see on Google when you search the word; one that cannot be far from a tailored jacket with lapels, trousers that have been well calculated to shape the leg structure, and shoes made of leather. And there’s a reason for it.

Either by the fact that these garments represent the proven timelessness that has stood the test of time across centuries, or the image associated with noble titles like gentleman — they always have a place in a man’s wardrobe in his lifetime. Even though plenty of these pieces are costly to obtain.

• $1,250 for a jacket made of decent Italian fabric from Biella.

• $650 for leather shoes made of fine French calfskin with century know-how from Northampton.

For most sartorial enthusiasts, each garment requires commitment — and that usually comes with thought behind the purchase.

One needs to know the symbolic meaning of a jacket, understand the construction and quality inspection of footwear, recognize the importance of material; all of which lead to fluency and self-awareness in one’s personal style. The good news is — this philosophical application is not strictly limited to the Classic Menswear Cult.

For instance, those names associated with the LVMH group — Dior, Givenchy — if a man or woman truly studied the heritage of each maison, knowing the individual behind the logo — Christian Dior, Hubert de Givenchy — then going deep into their design philosophy: either the divine feminine beauty of “The New Look” by Dior that dominated the whole decade of the ’50s, or the simple elegance of Givenchy that lets the wearer’s physique shine through the garment, not the other way around.

Then even if a lady acquired a blouse by Dior that carries the strong shoulder silhouette paying homage to the New Look in 1947, or a vintage Givenchy black dress made of cotton or silk that is reminiscent of the same elegance Audrey Hepburn wore in the 1960s — all with full awareness of her own taste — then even if it’s from a brand within LVMH, this is the “true” luxury experience: the independent choice made by the substance of the object, synthesized with self-awareness.

Luxury, when looked at carefully, is another form directly intertwined with human nature by default — It is the word that plays with inner desire; but those who can control it, be aware of it, then embrace and cultivate that sense of joy of living — it is not evil.

In today’s landscape of a consumption-based society, there are plenty of channels that do their work to ingrain the perceptive seed in your mind, captivate your attention, and in the end, wish that you will become one of their customers. It’s how capitalism works — which is not necessarily bad. What makes it look bad is when the “allure of luxury” stays at the surface level — the idea of obtaining status for superiority without knowing how much it will cost, monetarily and spiritually.

Authentic luxury — either in the format of clothing, enriched experience, or otherwise — is a different approach to this biological force of desire, by integrating intellect through self-awareness, by placing substantial thought behind action.

So to say that luxury is not inherently corrupting. Nor inherently noble. It is diagnostic.

It exposes whether desire is directed by awareness or by appetite.

And that truth applies far beyond clothing.

“The only great director we’ve got right now is Paolo Sorrentino…or perhaps Luca Guadagnino.”

That’s the line that my Italian friend in Milan told me about their current cinema scene.

Amusing, for sure, when I first heard it — since before I arrived in Milan, the idea of Italian cinema is one that’s full of passion, complexity, artistry, and very deeply “human” — one that shows both the good, bad, and ugly sides of humanity. Names like Fellini, Antonioni, Visconti, De Sica of the bygone era, or even modern-day figures like Sorrentino, made me believe that in this land, cinema is still cinema, and that taste as a whole still favors “depth” in film.

But when my Italian friend told me that the top five grossing films in the national box office — half of them — are made and starred by Checco Zalone, a name I wasn’t familiar with until I discovered that he’s essentially a national comedy celebrity in Italy, I then realized that even here, the culture the masses consume is far from Marcello Mastroianni having an existential crisis in Rome.

After that exposure to the harsh truth, I wondered:

“How has the film industry, from the West to the East, evolved into the current situation?”

While I once articulated the big picture of “cinema” in this editorial piece — with a slight tap into the behavior of modern audiences — I do believe there’s much more to the decadence of attention span and expectations in consumption, and to the actual patterns that can be seen across cultures.

Considering music: it has gone through thousands of years of evolution alongside human civilization. First beginning as simple rhythms and vocal sounds used for ritual and social bonding, it later became more structured and tied to religion, culture, and education during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, when written notation, harmony, and complex compositions developed, turning music into a refined art form.

Then the names of Amadeus Wolfgang Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven came in and introduced what modern society considers “classical music.” This genre nowadays has become somewhat “high culture” to the masses, with its complex structures and long-form compositions that require training to perform and understand (which we have to admit, the house-trap style or hip-hop/EDM of modern Spotify is much easier for the human ear to “groove” with).

Thus, over time, this music became closely tied to elite institutions — royal courts, churches, conservatories, universities, and concert halls. Combined with the fact that learning, performing, and accessing this music demanded education, money, and leisure, it gradually became associated with status and intellect, rather than everyday life.

This framed “classical” as high culture: serious…prestigious…and symbolic of refinement.

The same thing happened to theater, which once belonged to public festivals and popular entertainment, but later became refined, formalized, and preserved for educated audiences in places like Teatro alla Scala; or literature, where stories that were originally oral or widely read became “classic literature” once universities and scholars canonized certain authors, framing their work as intellectually superior and worthy of study rather than casual enjoyment.

Ladies and gentlemen, what is currently happening to cinema is about to be the same as those cultures of the bygone era — especially the kind that is still made through the lens of “auteurs.”

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An auteur is a director whose films feel authored, not manufactured; they reflect a distinct, personal creative vision, to the point where the director is considered the primary author of the film — even though filmmaking is collaborative. First properly coined by Cahiers du Cinéma, a French film magazine in the 1950s, the term argued that some directors leave such consistent fingerprints on their work that you can recognize their films the way you recognize a novelist’s flair or a painter’s style. All of this can take the form of recurring ideas across their films, or a signature presentation style through storytelling and cinematography.

Now, I would like you to look at these names…

• Quentin Tarantino

• Wes Anderson

• Denis Villeneuve

• Christopher Nolan

These names are considered directors (usually also writers in many of their films) who are arguably at the forefront of auteur cinema — those who balance current demands of taste in consumption with a “distinct” personal view directly injected into the films they direct (especially Nolan, who somewhat perfectly walks the line between blockbuster and auteur flair with grace).

But let’s look at other names…

• Apichatpong Weerasethakul

• Ryusuke Hamaguchi

• Jim Jarmusch

• (and many from Cannes, Venice, or Berlin that only cause confused faces when people hearing their names)

These auteurs are getting less and less “spotlight” from the cinema industry sphere — and the consequence is the decadence of films that do more than deliver instant gratification. While it’s not a law or a wrongdoing for a man or a woman to consume cinema for pure joy and let go of thinking or thought, it reflects a shift in the role of film itself. The clearest analogy is the distance between Paolo Sorrentino’s films — which made a name on an international level, like La Grande Bellezza — and the far greater domestic recognition received by comedies made by Zalone. Nothing wrong in that sense, but it’s a sign that’s not so bright for the future of cinema.

If we travel back to the last century, the industry — even in Hollywood (whether during the Golden Age or New Hollywood) — was full of films made with vision, purpose, and depth.

Behind recognizable genres, artistry was always hiding. And with New Wave cinema, or Italian cinema in the 60s — oh…ladies and gentlemen — it revolutionized this medium…and became the pure embodiment of auteur theory.

In France, filmmakers like Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut broke away from polished studio filmmaking and treated film like a living language. Handheld cameras, jump cuts (which were anomalies at the time), natural light, direct sound, ambiguous endings.

In Italy, figures such as Michelangelo Antonioni and Federico Fellini pushed cinema inward. Instead of plot-driven spectacle, films explored alienation, memory, desire, boredom — the inner life of modern people. Stories slowed down. Silence mattered. Meaning came from mood, framing, and absence as much as from action.

And many more — Akira Kurosawa, Ingmar Bergman, Andrei Tarkovsky, etc. — made films a medium for telling their own thoughts and stories, which people, though not on a mass scale, appreciated and were willing to “sit down” with.

However, auteur cinema is now slowly moving into the same cultural lane as classical music, fine art, and literary fiction. Film schools teach it, festivals curate it, critics defend it, and museums archive it. Once that happens, the audience narrows — not because the films get worse, but because they demand time, literacy, and patience in a culture optimized for speed.

Today’s mass cinema is driven by franchises, algorithms, and spectacle — instantly legible, globally marketable, low-risk…guaranteed return on investment (which must be judged immediately, since the end goal of film is now to end up on streaming — often very soon after its premiere). Auteur films, meanwhile, circulate through festivals, retrospectives, boutique theaters, and streaming “prestige” sections. They’re framed less as entertainment and more as art to be interpreted. That framing alone turns them into “high culture” — something most people immediately scroll past or walk away from when seeing the poster or teaser.

The root of the current issue also lies in the nature of modern filmmaking and how it has shifted in the past decade. Big studios no longer need directors as selling points; they need IP. Franchises, sequels, and cinematic universes are safer bets than individual vision. This leads to the collapse of the mid-budget film space — where auteur cinema used to live, with $10–40M films that could take risks but still reach theaters widely. Now, that tier has mostly vanished. What’s left is either giant blockbusters or small prestige films that circulate through festivals, critics, and niche streaming sections — basically pre-filtered for cinephiles.

Considering the nature of how modern audiences consume culture now, algorithms push what’s familiar, fast, and already popular. Auteur films, on the other hand, ask for attention, patience, and context — things modern platforms actively discard.

While auteurs aren’t gone (since Nolan, Villeneuve, and a few others in Hollywood still stand tall as the last grail), most of them are now hidden. Their films still exist, but the pathways that once carried them into mainstream culture — theaters, critics, shared media moments — are almost gone.

The twist?

This invisibility is exactly how high culture forms. When art stops competing for mass attention and instead survives through institutions, archives, festivals, and schools, it becomes prestigious — but distant…and somehow, still matters.

“The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls” — Pablo Picasso

While culture, in the form of cinema, is far from mandatory for physical survival, in terms of spirit and soul, it’s undeniably crucial. Humans are not driven merely by instinct or biology. What makes us human is our ability to construct symbolic realities — narratives, myths, values, dreams.

Cinema is one of the most potent tools we’ve ever created to encode and transmit this symbolic software. Through it, we see ourselves — reinterpreted, idealized, deconstructed. It is not optional if one truly cares about having a mind that does more than eat, breed, and die.

Take away meaning, and you don’t get civilized humans. Instead, you get hollow ones — numb, violent, compliant, or self-destructive. What I’m calling “soul” here is not a mystical entity — it’s the interior architecture of symbols and values. And cinema is one of its master builders.

Ladies and gentlemen, the thing is, no one really wants to live just to exist. We all, in some way, desire to live for something.

And the vision of that something?

Often comes to us flickering in the dark of a theater, or on a screen late at night.

From Kubrick to Kurosawa, cinema has always been a philosophical scalpel, peeling back the lies we live under. It makes us look, even when it hurts. It awakens reflection — and sometimes revolution.

Now, the heart of the matter: how do we actually see, feel, and enjoy auteur cinema — screens that serve as the integrity of a man or a woman willing to say what they really think, no matter how studios or production teams believe it won’t survive on a streaming platform?

The brutal truth is — most people want escape, not confrontation. But truth is not always pretty, and genuine art is not anesthesia — it’s a mirror, a scalpel, a torch. It doesn’t numb pain; it names it, reflects it, and sometimes even transcends it.

This is the main objection modern audiences usually raise when it comes to certain kinds of films.

Well, auteur cinema, when you look at it for what it is, is not stress. It’s confrontation with buried emotion. The grief one never processed. The questions one never asked. The beauty one sometimes forgot existed. It doesn’t offer escape like a blockbuster — but it surely offers resonance.

Humans don’t grow by watching what confirms their comfort zones. They grow by being moved, disturbed, reassembled.

• You watch La Dolce Vita and question the purpose of the “sweet life” within higher social echelons.

• You see Hiroshima mon Amour and wonder how far a scar from war can travel, down to the most fragmented, intimate level.

This is not “stress.” This is depth.

People avoid difficult art for the same reason they avoid silence: it reveals too much. The fear isn’t really about stress — it’s about being seen too clearly, about not having the emotional tools to process what surfaces.

To enjoy it is not to “have fun” in the traditional sense. It’s to feel met, challenged, and seen.

If I have to leave this editorial with a revelation that allows me to sit still in front of either my laptop screen or a niche cinema in town, it is this:

• Let go of passive pleasure

• Approach it as dialogue, not product

• Expect discomfort

• Don’t watch to escape life

• Let the film challenge you

The right film — seen with open eyes and a willing heart — can burn through the numbness and remind you that you’re still human.

In the end, keeping auteur cinema alive isn’t about saving “high culture.”

It’s about keeping cinema from forgetting that it can think, doubt, and speak in a human voice — not just entertain.

So if modern cinema ever becomes only what performs well, then auteur cinema will be the last screen where the medium still remembers why it exists at all.

The image I had, even before stepping into the heart of Lombardy, was the idea of a black overcoat, a navy suit, and footwear with a buckle. And I was right. That’s the visual of Milan’s sartorial scene.

• Dark monotone color palette

• Leather footwear with a buckle

• Cuffed trousers (no matter the silhouette or break length)

• Sunglasses even on a cloudy day

• Elegance as the expected standard

Here, everything I used to perceive as an extra mile suddenly turned into the ordinary language of how people dress on just another Wednesday. This made me wonder about a bigger question: “What makes Milan have this exact sartorial aspect that seems ingrained into the soul?”

Even in 2026, Milan is a city where tailoring has gone out of the mainstream norm and is worn mostly for specific occasions — yet when one chooses to embrace it and walk within the city centre, whether among tourists around the Duomo or in local districts like Corso Indipendenza, he won’t feel out of place.

The investigation probably starts best when we look at the root of the issue: “Who defined how we should dress?” Because one way or another, style and way of life — they’re always connected.

Since very ancient times, the purpose of clothes has been much more than merely to regulate body temperature. The shaman and his wolf skin, the Roman emperor and his grandeur attire, the aristocracy and their way of showing distinction in social class. Behind every garment, there has always been a symbol of meaning, reflecting the human side of life. In the case of Milan, I want you to look at a brief historical narrative of the city.

Back in the 15th and 16th centuries — the Renaissance period — fashion became a reflection of courtly power. Italian city-states like Florence, Venice, and Milan were epicenters of taste. What one wore was dictated by laws: legal restrictions on garments based on class and income. In other words, clothing was literally policed.

And who defined how people dressed then? The aristocracy — and their tailors.

These craftsmen were not mere artisans crafting for craft’s sake, but artists who understood social codes. They laid the groundwork for the modern tailor’s role: not just to fit a garment, but to sculpt identity.

By the 19th century, with the Industrial Revolution and the final unification of Italy in 1861, Milan became a symbol of modernity. Tailoring moved from the courts to the bourgeois class on the streets. Of course, with British influence giving the world the template of the modern suit — but Italians refined it, injecting softness, sprezzatura (a philosophical term coined by courtier Baldassare Castiglione), and flair into the garment.

Since then, Milan became central: a hub where business, industry, and subtle elegance converged. And unlike the more flamboyant Neapolitans or Roman exhibitionists, Milanese style evolved into a uniform of quiet confidence — navy suits, grey flannels, black overcoats. All signaling understatement, control, and purpose.

After WWII, Milan became the capital of Italian prêt-à-porter — ready-to-wear fashion. The city no longer just followed style; it set the tone and then produced it. From Giorgio Armani’s unstructured suits of the 1980s, which turned the Milanese businessman into a global archetype of power and cool, to Brioni (originating from Rome, but gaining prominence in Milan), which gave Pierce Brosnan’s James Bond his silhouette, to Zegna, which refined the textile narrative of the industry.

So even as designers and industrial magnates began shaping how the world dressed, in Milan, that sartorial essence remained constant. Tailoring here was never abandoned; it evolved without discarding its roots.

That said, in 2026, while tailoring is no longer a mainstream uniform for men, in Milan, it never needed to be. Because here, style is cultural muscle memory. The citizens have absorbed generations of proportion, restraint, and refinement. It isn’t about rules anymore, but rather a language — a shared dialect of dress.

With all this narrative, the way one dresses, we can assume, has always been defined by:

• The ruling class of the era (nobility, bourgeoisie, business elite)

• The local climate — both literal and cultural

• The craftsmen/designers who interpreted aspiration into cloth

• And most importantly, the city’s collective memory

That’s why in Milan, with its centuries-old heritage — even if only considered Italy’s modern “capital” from the mid-19th century — the language of style has always leaned toward discretion, craft, and elegance in detail, without the loudness of the individual.

Now the matter of interest is this: “Why can some cities simply not achieve the same sartorial fluency?”

As mentioned earlier, a city’s collective memory plays a huge role in dictating this — one accumulated over centuries through social norms and culture. With that in mind, I’d like you to consider these places:

Los Angeles

Hollywood. Glamour. Yet also a place of performance ingrained into every aspect of life — rooted in youth, physicality, celebrity, and creative nonchalance — where tailored garments suggest aspiration rather than legitimacy. The climate reinforces this psychology: an exterior, sun-drenched city that favors immediacy over layering, comfort over structure. Sartorial expression exists as costume, red-carpet armor, or niche connoisseurship, but never as a civic language. And without a social moment where a man must learn how tailoring works, fluency cannot form.

Tokyo

While the city absolutely possesses extraordinary technical mastery of tailoring, it remains constrained by its position as a student rather than an author of the tradition — seen through the many Japanese tailors who flew to Italy in the late 20th century, whether to Florence or Naples. The suit entered Japan as a tool of modernization, not as an organic expression of a native bourgeois elite, which made tailoring an act of reverence, precision, and study. Japanese sartorial excellence is often archival and referential — British, Italian, Ivy — executed with almost moral seriousness.

What is missing is unconscious authority. In Milan, tailoring is worn because it is normal; in Tokyo, because it is correct. That subtle difference keeps tailoring elevated, admired, and immaculate — but never fully absorbed into everyday social instinct.

Bangkok

Now comes a tropical paradise. Yes, the weather is unforgiving — but there’s a deeper reason: interrupted continuity and the absence of a long-standing civilian tailoring culture. Historically, power in Thailand expressed itself through royal, military, and traditional dress rather than Western tailoring, which arrived later as bureaucratic necessity and a global business uniform. Combined with a climate that presents a genuine physical objection to daily tailoring, its ability to become habitual was limited. Meanwhile, the city’s modern identity is fast, forward-facing, and visually exuberant rather than cumulative and ritualistic.

That’s why fashion truly thrives in Bangkok — including luxury — but tailoring, which requires slowness, repetition, and generational memory, never had the time nor the conditions to become a shared sartorial dialect.

That said, I would not say that you cannot wear tailoring in these cities or beyond with elegance. Because if the core idea of elegance is about ease — both within oneself and toward others — then all you need is to decode the nature, the language of style of each city and attune yourself to it, without compromising the virtues you hold onto.

Let’s make this practical. Take Tokyo.

If you’re familiar with the city, you know that dynamic is a key defining characteristic. People are always moving, always doing something — whether moving forward, staying in place, or feeling nostalgic about the past. It is always an act of motion. That’s why it’s no coincidence that when you search “Tokyo fashion” today, you’ll see a vast range of styles: streetwear, avant-garde design, pure sartorial, Ivy throwback, or “best” — all combined into one.

Which means tailoring can certainly be in touch with Tokyo, as long as it isn’t strict to tradition, but instead embraces movement, dynamism, and combination within a single ensemble. That’s why the visual of a baseball cap with an OCBD and chinos, topped with a vintage military jacket from the ’60s and finished with chunky fashion loafers — while it might be “too much” for London, Milan, or even Kyoto (Japan’s traditional cultural city) — feels perfectly aligned with Tokyo.

The same applies to Bangkok, Los Angeles, or anywhere else. As long as you’re aware of the tone, the language, and how people live — the collective memory of each city — then integrating your sartorial flair, or style as a whole, can absolutely achieve elegance.

It might sound like a hardened abstract idea to crystallize the essence of a city into a definition and directly inject it into style consideration. But if I had to give you my exact “know-how,” gathered here in Milan, it would be this: walk into the city, look at how people dress, and feel the atmosphere. It’s the combination of people, buildings, city colors, and weather.

All of this leads to one thing: the need to slow life down. To be aware of the world circling around you and to ask yourself, “How can I attune to this city without losing who I am?”

When that balance is achieved, elegance follows — quietly and effortlessly.

For most people, when they think of travel, words like holiday, leisure, and escape immediately come to mind. These ideas dictate the tone and experience — all of which, I’m sure you can imagine, fall neatly under the banner of the tourist.

I never liked that idea.

Traveling, to me, is something different — something far more than spending enormous capital on so-called “luxury experiences,” or hopping from one tourist attraction to another for a week, calling it a trip, then returning to life as if nothing had happened.

“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.” — A Moveable Feast

I’ve been reading a lot of Hemingway recently, and somehow his work allowed me to crystallize my own definition of traveling as a journey to be in a place far from home. If there was a specific moment that triggered this idea, it was last winter, when I had the chance to visit Paris and London for the first time.

By then, my inner cultural paradigm had already taken shape — informed, educated, and well-read. But I discovered that actually experiencing culture, breathing in the same air as the things I admired — tailoring, cinema, craftsmanship, British humor, the French language — was far more fulfilling and deeply ingrained than consuming them through media. These experiences are what allow us to grow as individuals, to become fuller in character, and more fluent in the idea of being human.

The more I read Hemingway — whether his debut The Sun Also Rises or the memoir A Moveable Feast — and the more I saw his early life as a wandering journalist moving between France and Spain, discovering life through people, places, and moments, the more convinced I became that I had to take that leap too.

I’ve spent a long time anchored in a metropolis like Bangkok, and it feels like the right moment to step away from it. And the place I’ve chosen for this pilgrimage — this season of travel, for a month or two — is the heart of Lombardy: Milano.

“The greatest hindrance to living is expectancy, which depends upon the morrow and wastes today.” — Seneca

If you’ve read my recent writing, you’ll know how Bangkok is not a city that opts for elegance. It’s a city that advocates casualness and convenience as its holy grails. That contrast made me imagine a place that might finally match my frequency — somewhere that treats elegance not as ostentation, but as a quiet expectation.

Only one name surfaced: Milan.

And after nearly a week of living here, I’m convinced that my assumption was right — though reality, as always, is harsher than imagination.

The first moment I sat in a Mercedes, watching the city pass by in winter — people wrapped in overcoats, cashmere scarves, black everywhere — I thought, This is it. Finally, a place where I could be myself without feeling alienated.

But after I dropped my luggage at my residence on Via Pasquale Sottocorno and decided to walk the city alone, I realized something else entirely: the distance between proximity and connection is profound. And it was then that I began to see Milan for what it truly is.

From the outside, through carefully curated Instagram feeds, Milan appears to be a city where every street is a runway and every corner hides a form of glamour. I agree — but to access it, to truly belong to it, you must earn that right.

Behind every wall, every façade, every gate, there is something concealed — a discreet society, a private community. These are things you’ll never experience if you remain an outsider, or if you’re perceived as a tourist who comes and goes.

And it’s this reality — that every city has its own code and cultural norms — that makes travel meaningful. If you treat traveling as a way to navigate those codes, not perfectly, but gradually, through exposure and lived experience, then it becomes one of the highest-return investments you can make in yourself.

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Possibilities in life depend on perception — on whether you’re able to see enough, and believe in what you see with real conviction. The way we expand perception is by exposing ourselves to new information and new narratives through all five senses.

The moment you step outside your comfort zone — into a new place, among new people, within a new culture — you are inevitably shaped. You gain new perspectives, cultivate new habits, and begin adopting new codes of living. When this multidimensional character development is paired with a purpose-driven life — one that exists to serve and fulfill something beyond the self — the experience is magically intensified. It opens pathways that simply cannot be reached by staying in the same place, or by trying to buy transformation instantly.

That said, this doesn’t mean you must abandon leisure or joy when packing a bag and boarding a plane. It all depends on the objective behind the move. If travel exists purely as an escape from the mundane, or as a pause from the hustle modernity demands, then spending generously at a Hyatt or sitting by the sea in a coastal city is perfectly understandable.

But wherever you go — regardless of where you choose to stay — look beyond mere hedonism. Observe humanity at a deeper layer: how locals walk, talk, eat, and live; how the tempo of the city operates as a whole; and how one might blend into it with restraint and elegance.

I believe you’re familiar with certain groups of people — those who empirically signal that they are not from here, often in the worst way. They disrupt the tempo and atmosphere of the place they occupy.

To be clear, I have no intention of talking down on tourists. I am one myself. Sitting in a Milanese café, surrounded by Italian conversations I barely understand, I am undeniably a visitor. Yet the principle I hold onto is simple: observe your surroundings and do whatever it takes to attune yourself to them — quietly.

Without loudness. Without imposing energy.

It’s the opposite of what I often witness back in Bangkok. From the way one dresses — blending into Milanese monochrome and winter-dark palettes — to gestures and posture, everything here points toward restraint. The way one carries oneself matters.

This city stands as a testament to elegance in action — not something merely admired, but something expected to be embodied. Fail to do so, and the loudness reveals itself immediately.

Elegance is a quality many places seem to have forgotten. Few still preserve it intact, and Milan in winter is a clear example. It isn’t about the glamour of buckle loafers or crocodile skin bags you’ll find along Via Montenapoleone. Elegance lives elsewhere — in how you compose yourself, how you present with grace, and how you practice containment.

It is a virtuous quality that never goes out of time — and one that feels increasingly necessary in the present moment.

Especially when you choose to journey far from home.

What’s the point of living life at its finest, fullest, and deepest every single day; waking up, taking care of the body, dressing up elegantly, doing the work daily that associates with the vision I aim for — only to find out that when dusk arrives, I just sit there — in my room, alone, with no one to share or celebrate with…

At first, I thought it was weakness — a need for others to acknowledge my self-worth. But the more I put thought into this, and the more frequently I experienced it, I realized it’s more than that. Perhaps it’s loneliness that I’m suffering from.

“If you’re lonely when you’re alone, you’re in bad company.” — Jean-Paul Sartre.

He said so, and that line stuck with this situation of mine.

The debate happens every time this feeling occurs — Is the cause from the fact that I cannot connect with others, or is it the fact that I cannot connect with myself and be serene about it?

The answer I got from plenty of introspection is both…

Lately, I’m in a transitional phase of myself — especially in career — and it somewhat dropped me lost along the way, to the point that I couldn’t see clearly where I needed to go. That caused a kind of void in the daily execution of the refined and polished life I had crafted, and left behind the hidden question: What were these things I’ve done for?

Luckily, I’ve now regained the vision, and one part of the problem has been solved.

The other part, however, is the true pain that gave birth to this editorial — the idea of disconnection from most people among mine; in other words, the mismatched frequency between me and the mass shaped by the city.

A city’s frequency is its dominant emotional, intellectual, and cultural rhythm — the pulse that shapes how people think, interact, and live within it. It’s not just about geography or architecture, but the collective mindset it cultivates. Some cities hum with surface energy, speed, and social utility, while others resonate with introspection, aesthetic depth, and philosophical presence. When your internal frequency — your values, emotional depth, and mode of perception — doesn’t align with the city’s, you experience dissonance not necessarily because you’re broken, but because you’re out of sync with the prevailing cultural current.

That, I believe, is the cause of the symptoms that have disturbed me recently — growing louder day after day; making me sympathize with many people from the West who expatriate to the Eastern part of the world and somehow feel “this side belongs to me” more than their hometown. The thing is, ladies and gentlemen, what metropolises like Bangkok, Tokyo, London, and New York somewhat have in common is constant stimulation from visual noise, digital distraction, and relentless motion — which fragments attention, numbs emotional depth, and erodes meaningful connection.

In these cities, the pace demands performance over presence, speed over stillness, and visibility over vulnerability, creating an environment where everyone is surrounded yet unseen, connected yet untouched — lonely not in solitude, but in the crowd.

In the past editorial, I explored the nature, evolution, and cost of modernity that built the infrastructure of what we now see as the metropolis — and the price of doing so. One of the inevitable consequences of technology that allows us to connect faster is the fleeting moment — the way each interaction turns into something normal, less valuable, making detachment the new norm.

The internet — for all that it allows you to read this and me to write this piece — is undeniably the factor that has made human connection less intimate, even though it’s available 24/7.

“The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.” — Socrates.

And if what the ancient Greek said is absolute truth, then the idea of being connected all the time — of being surrounded by millions of people in the same city — is undoubtedly perceived as too much for the mind to recognize individual existence as worthy, and to develop happiness from it. Combine this hyper-connection with uncertainty and the constant bombardment of information from the square device in our hands, and it’s no wonder why human connection — especially romance — has become so rare to genuinely find these days.

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One auteur had already thought of this — and said it through cinema — sixty years ago; before the age of the internet, before the new millennium. Yet everything he portrayed through his iconic work resembles the current condition of alienation, loneliness, and detachment in the 2020s and likely beyond. That auteur was Michelangelo Antonioni, and this was his final installment of the trilogy — L’Eclisse (1962).

I know I’ve talked about this director and his trilogy quite frequently, but there’s a real reason for it — especially when the subject is the relationship between modernity and alienation. Among the trilogy, L’Eclisse — starring the charming Alain Delon and the enigmatic Monica Vitti — is the one that tells the story best.

It all takes place in Rome, the so-called Eternal City, and what it becomes after modernity touches it. Beginning with suburban life — surrounded by wide roads, distances between neighbors, even couples who live in the same room yet remain far apart in heart and soul. Across nearly two hours, Antonioni expressed his idea — and perhaps his fear — of what modernity would do to humanity: that it would consume people with a materialistic paradigm, detach them from connection through uncertainty of environment, a lack of self-awareness, an inability to know oneself or one’s desires — and ultimately make life feel soulless to live in.

What he foresaw has only amplified since the 1960s: from the colosseum of the trading floor to the Instagram attention screen; from kissing and never meeting again to swiping and replying to stories. These are not new behaviors — they are intensified versions of what Antonioni predicted and expressed through the film.

What matters now is: what can we do about this?

Again, this is still a problem that’s somewhat bigger — part of a grand, global scheme happening across major metropolises around the world. (So if you’re reading this and have something to share, please let me — and others — know in the comments.)

But my solution — or at least the assumption I’ve arrived at to confront isolation and loneliness — is to fix it at the micro level: to allow myself to align with a place that operates on the same frequency as me.

Bangkok — the place where I was born and lived for over two decades — certainly carries a different rhythm. I’ve come to realize that I don’t belong to its nature. From the way of dressing, to the way of living, to the idea of connecting with other human beings — it’s simply not what I’m attuned to.

From what I’ve explored so far, the place — the city, the modern metropolis — that carries the wavelength I seek must be neither too heritage-bound nor overly romantic, neither flat nor soulless. It must be grounded, present, and balanced between the two realms of old and new. And there’s one name that I’ve always felt — always returned to — Milano.

Speaking from an external point of view, and soon to experience it firsthand in the coming period, this capital of Italy — the heart of Lombardy — is a place that integrates tailoring, culture, art, philosophy, and way of life seamlessly with modernism, wrapped in capital and dynamism. It’s a place that I believe serves individuals who know who they are, and who are willing to stay true to that — without falling too deeply into romanticism or hard pragmatism.

It’s a big move on my side, for sure. But I wholeheartedly believe it will finally bring a symmetrical balance to the frequency I operate on — and, in some way, help me deal with the symptoms of alienation that modern metropolises have spread into every corner.

“Modernity is the transient, the fleeting, the contingent; it is one half of art, the other being the eternal and the immutable.” — Charles Baudelaire, The Painter of Modern Life (1863)

Modernism is a cultural and artistic movement that emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, characterized by a deliberate break with tradition and a search for new forms of expression in response to modernity.

Due to the occurrence of disruptive emergence during the 19th-century landscape — from industrialization and urbanism to shifted social norms — the way of human life has been reshaped by speed, convenience, and fleeting experience. The nature of modernity seems to intensify day by day.

Technology, science, rationalization — the great intellectual creations that humanity articulated into forms allowing civilization to achieve more in a single century than in the previous millennium — have also shaped life in modern time into a very specific form. An isolation of the soul, in the big metropolis, living and existing for the capitalist machine: either in monetary pursuit or the endless ladder of status and clout.

Thus, the form of the metropolis has occurred since then. With the economic “center” gathered within a single capital, people from all across the country found their way into the city. Some made their fortune as entrepreneurs, some achieved a decent life as thinkers or the knowledge class, but most ended up with a stripped soul in the factory 9–5.

When masses needed to live within it, the inevitable came: the fact of limited space. This forced the cityscape into density — tall buildings, crowded streets, and more; things that I believe you readers have observed and are already aware of.

While there are some capitals that successfully blended heritage and utility altogether — those names do not include Bangkok. I can tell, from the experience of living in this city for two decades… it is a chaotic, contradictory place to be in.

From an external point of view, Bangkok is a tropical paradise. With one of the most convenient infrastructures, iconic culinary culture, plenty of tourist attractions, and even an urban modern nightlife with endless possibilities to offer — the only rule is that you must have enough capital to experience them. People from strong-currency countries usually pass that criteria automatically.

However, beside the glamour of modern offerings, the heritage of temples and grand palaces — within the same acres, the same blocks — lie poverty, alienation, and soulless lives, either drained by the instability of modern time or by a cityscape that was never designed for living in, only living on.

My view on modernity and the metropolis is this:

I agree that it is inevitable, due to the evolutionary aspect of human nature — but it needs to find a middle ground. An experience that contains soul, life, aesthetic, beauty, love, romance, and passion within it.

Yet it is a very, very tough thing to achieve. From the early occurrence of the term being coined to the new millennium, humanity seems to struggle endlessly with the cost of evolution in the name of modernism.

Perhaps we need to look back — just a few centuries ago — and you’ll notice that modernism has been a topic of contradiction ever since. From New York to Tokyo, through various eyes and perspectives, artists and thinkers questioned the existence of the metropolis and the new world paradigm in their own alluring ways.

Charles Baudelaire — Le Flâneur

Ladies and gentlemen, I want you to imagine 19th-century Paris — the birth of the Paris you see and somewhat romanticize through Instagram these days. With the occurrence of Haussmann’s renovation, Paris transformed: from dense, crowded streets lacking space and aesthetic, into the symbol of the modern city of its era.

However, there was one eye that saw this not as evolution, but as decadence of the soul — Charles Baudelaire.

He was arguably the first true modern soul; part poet, part existential dandy — a man who didn’t just witness the birth of modernity, but seduced it, cursed it, and ultimately died from its poison. His invention wasn’t merely a poem, but a persona: Le Flâneur — the idle urban stroller who watches the city with detached curiosity.

A man neither fully inside the city nor completely outside it, but a flâneur who floats through the spectacle of urban life… absorbing its patterns, its absurdities, its lies. In Baudelaire’s hands, wandering became philosophical. The act of observing the crowd — without being absorbed by it — became a form of resistance. Detached, ironic, hyper-aware — and deeply alone.

Paris, through his eyes, wasn’t romantic because it was beautiful. It was romantic because it was decaying with style. He saw elegance as a mask for rot, perfume as a disguise for death, beauty as something artificial — and that’s precisely what made it divine. No wonder his works are filled with prostitutes, dying flowers, and alleyways dripping with symbolism.

What Baudelaire offered was not a celebration of the modern world, but a poetic lens through which to survive it. He taught us that beauty doesn’t lie in clean lines or eternal truths — but in fleeting moments, stolen glances, decaying flowers in silver vases, and cigarette smoke swirling under gaslight.

He made alienation aesthetic.

He made observation sacred.

And in doing so, he built the philosophical foundation not only for modernism, but for modern consciousness itself.

Edward Hopper — The Lonesome Painter

The United States in the early to mid-20th century was something special — a nation that reigned supreme. A booming economy, suburban expansion, neon signs, and the rise of consumer culture; all of this happening while global warfare loomed in the background. Still, the idea of the American Dream seemed alive, advancing through the cityscape of the era.

But beneath that glossy exterior, something darker crawled: a loss of spirit. Cities grew taller, homes grew wider — but human hearts grew quieter. The landscape became efficient, sanitized, and profoundly lonely.

And there was one man who saw it all — Edward Hopper.

Yet he didn’t scream about it.

He painted it.

Slowly. Methodically.

His canvases weren’t crowded with action or political symbols, but stripped bare and filled with stillness. A lone man at a gas station at dusk. A woman sitting by a window in a hotel room. A couple in a diner, sitting close — yet emotionally miles apart.

Hopper’s style is deceptively simple: sharp lines, stark lighting, minimal expression. But within that economy, he achieves a kind of emotional brutalism. His colors are cold, his light unnatural, his settings eerily static. It’s cinematic — but in slow motion, as if time itself is holding its breath.

The stillness doesn’t soothe; it stings.

And always, the figures — even when together — are utterly alone. Hopper gives us public solitude. People surrounded by civilization, yet untouched by it. This isn’t loneliness caused by geography — it’s existential. You’re in the city, yet you’re adrift.

He stripped away the patriotic myth and suburban fantasy, revealing a country built on quiet desperation. No propaganda. No heroism. Just a man, a light, a window — and the haunting question of who we are when no one’s watching.

Michelangelo Antonioni — Existential Auteur

While post-war America spearheaded into consumerism and suburban optimism, continental Europe moved differently. There was no clean slate, no fantasy of reinvention. Instead, there was memory, decay, and the slow disintegration of the old world’s meanings. This is the world of Michelangelo Antonioni’s cinema.

Particularly in his iconic trilogy — L’Avventura, La Notte, and L’Eclisse — these films do not tell stories in the traditional sense. They dissect emotional topographies. In La Notte, we drift through Milan’s modernist buildings, glass towers, and bourgeois parties. The city is clean, elegant — and emotionally bankrupt. Relationships don’t break; they quietly expire. Architecture doesn’t serve as a container for meaning, but rather consumes it.

His characters, dressed immaculately, speak fluently — yet never touch. Not physically. Not spiritually. There is noise everywhere, but no communication.

And then comes L’Eclisse — perhaps the most haunting expression of modern disconnection ever filmed.

The romantic plot dissolves before it even begins. Rome is no longer the city of lovers, but a cold mechanism of finance, fashion, and empty routine. The stock exchange, once a symbol of future-building, becomes a grotesque ballet of greed. Even the light feels indifferent.

The film ends (spoiler alert) not with resolution, but with absence — a final montage where the characters never return. Only urban spaces remain, watching us with clinical detachment.

Modern cities, through Antonioni’s lens, are no longer places of memory or myth. They are places without a center. They have architecture, but no soul. Civilization, but no culture. Motion, but no meaning. His camera lingers not on action, but on the spaces between actions.

Sofia Coppola — A Letter Lost in Translation

Now we move into the new millennium, when the world had become fully globalized — culturally intertwined, technologically hyper-connected… yet emotionally adrift. Endless cities, flights, hotels, screens — and a creeping sense that something vital is missing, even though everything is technically “fine.”

Lost in Translation is a film by the heiress of modern cinema, Sofia Coppola, that captures modern alienation not through tragedy or violence, but through soft dissonance. It tells the story of Bob (Bill Murray), an aging actor, and Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson), a young newlywed lost in early adulthood. They meet not in a romantic European alleyway, but in a sterile luxury hotel floating above Tokyo.

A city full of neon light, overwhelming pace, and impenetrable barriers.

They’re not tourists. They’re not locals. They’re ghosts with passports — caught between time zones and life stages.

Coppola doesn’t use Tokyo merely as a backdrop; she uses it as a metaphor. It’s ultra-modern, hyper-efficient, yet emotionally elusive. You can buy anything, experience everything — but touch nothing. The streets are flooded with light and noise, yet there’s no conversation.

In this way, Tokyo becomes the perfect mirror for early 21st-century modernism: the era of options without meaning. There’s no plot propulsion because there’s nothing to resolve. Only presence, mood, and quiet yearning. Her characters aren’t searching for answers — they’re just trying to feel something real.

At its core, the film explores the interiority of modern life — especially for those privileged enough to “have it all,” yet still feel numb. Coppola paints modern Tokyo not as dystopia or utopia, but as emotional purgatory — sleek, seductive, and slightly out of sync with the human heart.

Still — among all the criticism and negative worldviews many thinkers have projected onto modernity — we cannot deny that this is the reality we live in. There is no turning back to the old world anymore. The real question, ladies and gentlemen, is this: how do we enhance and experience the soul, the beauty, and the allure our cityscapes still have to offer?

The first thing we can empirically observe is architecture and landscape. While it’s true that I’m probably the last person in the room to speak in technical or intellectual architectural terms, I think we can all agree that these elements dictate the quality of life and aesthetic of the places we inhabit.

When you look closely, architecture is essentially a script for daily emotional reality. It dictates how humans move, see, feel — and even what we believe is possible. A well-designed city can slow your heartbeat, elevate your thoughts, invite connection, and make beauty feel like a birthright. A poorly designed one does the opposite: it alienates, exhausts, and flattens the soul. And it’s not just about buildings — it’s about the psychology of space, and how it shapes our quality of life, identity, and collective memory.

Try to imagine Paris for a second.

I won’t pretend I’m a native or that I lived there for decades — in fact, it was only a week-long visit. Less than one percent of what the city has to offer. Yet even in the 2020s, when large-scale buildings and new-millennium technologies have crawled into every aspect of life, people — both locals and discerning visitors — still walk into centuries-old palaces, sip coffee on historic streets, and live among Haussmannian architecture that absorbs modernity instead of being destroyed and replaced by it.

That decision alone makes Paris a beacon. A city that attracts tourists and maintains its myth — even though its actual daily life now contains many social issues we can all probably guess.

The same applies to Rome, Vienna, Kyoto, and other cities that radiate a kind of quiet magic — places that allow humanity to reconnect with themselves, with others, and with the environment in ways most modern metropolises fail to achieve.

But what about cities that were built to serve modernism directly? What choices remain for dense megacities driven by speed, capital, and fleeting lives? How can they allow people to truly live in them, not just physically exist on top of concrete?

I won’t pretend to offer an absolute answer. But from my experience walking through Bangkok over the past year — exploring far beyond shopping malls — I’ve realized that even here, there are spaces that make metropolitan life feel soulful and aesthetically livable. Spaces that remind people they are more than just bodies moving through systems of efficiency.

Take Bangkok Kunsthalle, for instance — a cultural hub in the old district of the city, renovated from a former industrial warehouse into a gathering place for creatives across disciplines. A space for connection, expression, and celebration of the human spirit in the modern age.

Or DIB Bangkok — arguably the city’s first true contemporary art museum. Featuring over a hundred artists from around the world, housed in a modernist space clearly influenced by Neo-Modernism and reminiscent of Tadao Ando’s architectural language.

These places ignite moments of calm and clarity amid skyscrapers and relentless pace. They are micro-restorations — done at the scale of streets, cafés, converted warehouses, and even empty lots. Intentional spaces that quietly resist the logic of the grid.

While the idea of visionary, sensitive political power reshaping cities at a grand scale is beautiful — the reality we’re heading toward is unlikely to look like that. The shift must happen at the micro level. Because even if many metropolises will never achieve the eternal myth Rome has accumulated over centuries, they can still enhance quality of life.

They can still remind us that mind, spirit, and connection can be nourished — even among millions of souls stacked in tall buildings, searching for something that feels like home.

Of course, this piece will not be about the top five best moments of the year or the best purchases I acquired (though there were plenty of those). Instead, it is about remembering what we have lost—through the lens of elegance. Icons who symbolized this trait at its very best, perhaps knowing that this year would be their last before entering the realm of eternity.

For some time now—since the late 20th century—the idea of elegance has been in decadence. With the release from the constraints of old-world norms, tradition and discerning etiquette have been widely discarded. So too has a way of life been abandoned, replaced by casualness that often compromises class. Whenever one in the 2020s desires to learn, to cultivate such virtues, all that remains is to look backward—to what once was—through literature, art, cinema… culture as a whole.

And yet, ladies and gentlemen, 2025 has become another year that claimed significant icons of elegance—some of the last remnants of the old world.

There are three names to whom I would like to devote this piece.

The Last Gentleman: Robert Redford (1936–2025)

If you had asked me before last September whether there was a living role model of true gentlemanly virtue, my answer would have been Robert Redford. Though in later years his style leaned more toward the 21st century—loosening formality and presentation—and though he retreated into a quiet private life after five decades of dedication to Hollywood and cinema as a whole, his character and integrity remained unchanged.

He was still the same Redford I saw at the 1981 Academy Awards—the most handsome director in the history of the Dolby Theatre, walking in with quiet confidence and walking out with an Oscar.

Passionate. Dedicated. Mr. Redford was the embodiment of a man who lived fully and true to himself. From his rise as a young star in This Property Is Condemned (1966) and Barefoot in the Park (1967), to becoming one of the defining figures of Hollywood in the 1970s—especially through his legendary collaborations with Paul Newman—he carried an effortless authority.

He later stepped behind the camera as a true auteur, directing Ordinary People, which earned him the industry’s highest honors. He went on to build one of the Big Four film festivals—Sundance—and devoted his influence to preserving things greater than himself, particularly in the realm of environmental advocacy.

In the way he dressed, the way he spoke, the way he carried himself—class was inseparable from the man. And in losing him this year, the world has undoubtedly lost one of its last true embodiments of elegance.

La Prima Donna: Claudia Cardinale (1938–2025)

An eternal icon of mid-century continental cinema, Signorina Claudia Cardinale stood as one of the final frontiers of an era when enigmatic aura and divine femininity truly mattered—both on screen and in culture. Among Italian cultural figures who represented class, elegance, and the remnants of the old world—alongside Sophia Loren (whom I regard as the irreplaceable embodiment of la bella figura italiana) and Monica Vitti—the name Claudia Cardinale unquestionably belongs in the pantheon.

While the world may be most familiar with her face through Hollywood productions such as The Pink Panther, which captured continental beauty through American eyes (despite casting her as a princess from a Central Asian region), her true brilliance cannot be confined there. That radiance shone most profoundly through her collaborations with the legendary Luchino Visconti—from Rocco and His Brothers to The Leopard, both co-starring Monsieur Alain Delon.

Add to this her iconic portrayal of the ideal woman in 8½, Fellini’s masterpiece, and a filmography that spans over a hundred works beyond the 1960s. Though her roles varied widely, interpreted through countless personas, one element remained constant: the presence of an era’s creative vision. She was the embodiment of true femininity—an essence the world now unmistakably misses.

L’Architettura: Giorgio Armani (1934–2025)

Throughout my entire sartorial journey, if there is one fashion designer—aside from Ralph Lauren—who convinced me that label and aesthetic can, at times, triumph over pure craftsmanship in the traditional sense, it is Armani.

It all began when I watched American Gigolo for the first time, during my early years in the sartorial realm, intentionally studying the fashion and style of the 1980s. That image of Richard Gere in a fluid double-breasted 4×1 with notch lapels struck me with surprise—and admiration. It was my first true encounter with Armani’s vision.

Trained and mentored by Nino Cerruti—an often-underrated figure in menswear—Giorgio Armani, particularly from the late 1970s through the late 1990s, revolutionized the world of tailoring and set the visual standard of the 1980s. Whenever one searches for “1980s suits” or “1980s style,” the same silhouette appears: broader shoulders, elongated lines, effortless drape—all born from his design philosophy.

His world—expressed through clothing, couture, and interiors—perfectly reflected his iconic words: “Elegance is not about being noticed, but being remembered.” I would argue that the name Giorgio Armani itself is the embodiment of that sentiment—one truly worthy of remembrance.

2025 did not only claim these three. It also marked the passing of figures such as Dame Diane Keaton, Dame Connie Francis, and many others—another year in which icons of a bygone era quietly departed.

The purpose of this piece, beyond paying tribute and honoring their virtue and character, is to remind us of what the world once possessed. What Redford, Cardinale, and Armani share—beyond being born in the 1930s—is the symbolism they upheld. They represented a time when elegance was expected, celebrated, and embedded in mass culture.

Each, in their own domain—cinema, fashion, personal conduct—expressed this ideal through distinct forms, styles, and characters. They remind us of old-world virtues that remain worth preserving, even as much of modern society has discarded them, or forgotten they ever existed.

This is precisely what Renaissance Flâneur stands for. And it is my hope that in the coming year, it will serve as a beacon of preservation in a world of elegance—to be a place that celebrates it, gives it voice, and allows it to survive amid the entropy of the overly casual.

However, the format called “film,” especially when it becomes “cinema,” is something special—a multidimensional medium that contains “human” in a living form, one that breathes, cries, laughs, can love—then transmits that into our psychology, letting us experience it alongside the characters or whatever the director decides. It is the highest form of art—one that requires multidisciplinary study from individuals gathered into a single project, pouring hundreds of hours and thousands (or millions) of dimes into creating one.

But what if you (or myself, six months earlier) do not have that kind of resource? What if all you have is the idea—the calling in your heart that “this must be made into a film and shown to the world”? How would you start? What can you expect from the experience—one that offers no guarantee of clout, fame, or financial return, but instead a noble pursuit of staying in integrity with oneself?

Here are all the things—the auteur breakdown—of my first ever film: Metropolitan.

The idea of auteur theory was proposed as a critical concept that views the director as the primary creative force (the “author”) of a movie, imprinting their personal vision, style, and themes onto the work—much like a novelist does. In that sense, a director is the god of the film—who, most of the time, is also the writer. And writing, as a form of creation, will inevitably “insert” some part of the creator into the work, one way or another.

Think of Ian Fleming—the ex-British naval intelligence officer who became a legend by creating one of the most iconic characters and series of all time: James Bond 007. Look closely and you’ll see parts of Bond’s lifestyle—gambling, drinking, aristocratic gentlemanliness, naval background—are all reflections of Fleming. Moreover, he injected his post-WWII paradigm—the Cold War tension, the landscape of uncertainty—into the stories through various scenarios and villains. That said, I strongly believe that a screenplay or film must, in large part, exist with an auteur perspective and total direction. There is nothing wrong with telling the story one desires to tell, nothing wrong with placing oneself in the film as the protagonist—whether they act in it or not.

Metropolitan—when my DP, who happens to be my best friend for life, read the first draft of the screenplay, he instantly told me, “So this is basically your life and your lens of viewing the world?” Oui, monsieur. It is my story—one I experience every single day, again and again. And that is why this film needs to happen.

The idea of isolation and loneliness in a metropolis is not novel. Over the past century or two, many great thinkers and creators have orchestrated works of art that express their concerns and frustrations with modern life in their own ways. Charles Baudelaire with the flâneur archetype—a philosophical countermeasure to stay sane in modern Paris. Fritz Lang and Metropolis. Antonioni and his trilogy. Edward Hopper, who beautifully articulated the term “beautiful isolation” through his paintings. Metropolitan—this piece—is no different.

The initial idea was an accumulation of thoughts that occurred across many of my evenings in Bangkok. Being a connoisseur of sartorial elegance, mid-century jazz, and real-life conversation, the more I wandered through jazz bars, rooftops of five-star hotels, or dressed intentionally in a tailored jacket and pleated trousers, the more I thought: “The era is long gone.” No more Miles Davis, no more Dave Brubeck, no more Cary Grant, no more Audrey Hepburn. Those were fantasies of a bygone era—left for appreciation but almost impossible to find in the present. Jazz bars have turned into spectacle spaces for Instagram posts, where the intense solo of a saxophone becomes mere background noise. Five-star hotel bars no longer require proper footwear. And the evening life of people in the metropolis is far from civilization and elegance.

But what if there is a man who insists on staying true to the virtues he admires… even if he is the only one left doing so?

That is what Metropolitan is all about—a story of a man who keeps seeking, yet knows deeply that what he seeks is so little left to hold onto.

1. The Screenplay

Great writing will likely make a film great, but poor writing will certainly kill a film—no matter who directs or stars in it. What I mean by “poor writing” is not the presence of an unconventional storytelling structure or a vague, abstract narrative. I mean the simple fact that the writer is not aware of what kind of story he or she intends to tell.

I’m not a film student in the conventional sense, so the idea of creating a narrative based on structure, inserting subtle exposition, sequencing the arc—I’m far from fluent in those. But in Metropolitan, if there is one thing I am absolutely certain about, it is the unshakable element of purpose and intention behind the screenplay.

If the purpose of this film is to both challenge and convince the audience that elegance—no matter how alienated it has become—still retains its beauty, then everything from “Fade In” to “Fade Out” must orbit around that. And since this is essentially an autobiography of my own life, I understand best how to orchestrate place, time, and emotion in each scene to express this art.

The process began with the logline, the synopsis, and the first draft of the screenplay—all completed within a single week. Though several refinements followed before reaching the final version, the skeleton had fully formed.

2. The Location Scouting

This is the tricky part—especially for an independent filmmaker. Locations come with costs, particularly the commercially grand ones. There are four main private locations required: The Residence, The Cocktail Bar, The Jazz Lounge, and The Open Space Community Center.

With an estimated budget of less than one grand, privately renting these places was impossible. Moreover, for opulent locations like cocktail bars and jazz lounges, bringing in filming equipment is restricted unless—you guessed it—you rent and close the space for shooting.

Here was my play: with limited budget, what must be lean has to be lean, and human relationships play a huge part.

• The Residence was provided by my best friend (who also happens to be the DP and the only crew member).

• The Cocktail Bar and The Open Space Community Center could be approached with guerrilla shooting techniques.

• The Jazz Lounge… thanks to my cocktail connoisseurship and charisma, I somehow received a referral from the head bartender to the owner, and was granted permission to film for a specific two-hour window—without having to close the place entirely.

It was a chaotic emotional roller-coaster, especially as the production schedule approached, but for better or worse, I got the locations I wanted.

3. The Cinematography

Once the screenplay and locations were settled, what remained was essentially the shot breakdown—the storyboard. Since this project is entirely my creation and fundamentally an auteur film, I needed a pair of eyes that understood my visual sensibility best. If you look at most of the published photographs of me, or my Instagram, they were all likely made possible by one man—my best friend and Director of Photography for Metropolitan: Mr. Got.

However, the “budget”—again, the villain of ambitious artists—played its part. He was not familiar with gimbals, and to shoot properly, he needed to buy one himself to pair with his existing single camera: the Sony A6300. Yes, this half-a-decade-old technology is what Metropolitan was shot on.

4K resolution, log profile—everything we needed, as long as it was paired with a stabilizer. We agreed on the DJI RS4 Mini. It was a heavy investment for him, especially if used for only one project. But his commitment to mastering the gear before shooting is something I truly respect. With our two main pieces of equipment and two additional lenses—35mm f/1.8 prime and 16–50mm tele—the shooting setup was ready.

What remained was the process of translating my screenplay into his vision. Though I suggested frames and shots, the DP’s eye was still crucial in determining whether a shot was possible and, if so, how to achieve it properly. The DP dictates which gear, lens, lighting, and shot sequence to use for each setup—though these need to be blocked in advance.

(For Metropolitan, all of this had already been completed during the location scouting phase.)

4. The Cast

Here comes the part that is perhaps the most interesting. For a long time, I debated with myself about why so many great auteurs—those who subtly proclaim themselves the gods of their own films—do not star in them. Only a few can do it: Orson Welles, Woody Allen, perhaps a handful of others. While the answer is still unclear even as I write this, it may be because being your own actor in your own auteur film removes the ability to hide behind the camera.

The actor is the body of the film—the one who portrays everything the director wants to appear on screen. And their job is only one thing: “Give the director what they want.” That is why many legendary directors have their own legendary actors: Hitchcock & Cary Grant, Fellini & Mastroianni, Melville & Delon, Scorsese & De Niro, Sorrentino & Servillo, and many more.

These actors gave their directors exactly what they wanted—and for Metropolitan, it is no different. The heart of this film rises and falls on a single character: The Man in the Ivory Tuxedo. The cast must be able to perform exactly what I want on screen—that he is at ease in a dinner jacket even if he is the only man wearing one in a metropolis of millions, that he appreciates the finer things in life, that he conveys the stoic, classical masculine gesture… and I could not think of anyone except Patrick Gunn—myself.

After the shoot, I realized how difficult it is for the director and lead actor to be the same person—especially when your entire crew is just a DP behind the camera with no assistant director. But to make this film complete in the way I desire, I believe I am the only one who could perform this role best.

What remained was the soulful element that would lift this film beyond vanity or a documented evening of a single man. The other essential character was the woman in the black dress. The purpose of this character is to help the audience—and the protagonist—realize that while his existence and values may be out of sync with the modern world, there is someone who appreciates them, even if she may not fully understand them. Her visual presence, elegance, and emotional projection I drew entirely from mid-century European cinema: Anna Karina, Françoise Dorléac, Monica Vitti…

With some luck and a referral from a close friend, I had the chance to audition a young lady—Sofi I. Schroeder. The moment I met her and watched her audition, I could sense that she was the woman in the black dress. The way she used language, her fluency in the language of cinema, and that gaze—one that perfectly matches the film’s climax—were undeniable.

Though her role appears in only two scenes and lasts less than 45 seconds, her presence completes Metropolitan exactly as I envisioned.

5. Editing

Of course, if the entire crew consists of me—writer, director, actor—and my friend as DP, then the editor cannot be far from either of us. And since this is an auteur-led film, I am the one who can orchestrate and perform the narration best.

If you have ever edited a YouTube video or made a film, you know this process is the most draining and time-consuming. Selecting shots, determining pacing, designing sound, color grading, sometimes adding VFX… In total, 32 hours were spent completing Metropolitan’s post-production in the Adobe ecosystem. (It could have been 28, but Premiere Pro crashed once, and I had to reapply stabilizer and remove noise again in After Effects.)

But after a week of depleted energy, when the scheduled date arrived, I finished it—screened it privately to my DP and a few discerning eyes. Then I submitted it to the only destination I dedicated myself to: Clermont-Ferrand—the Festival de Cannes of short films.

And the result? As announced a week ago while I’m writing this—among approximately 8,900 films submitted this year, Metropolitan did not qualify for screening.

I don’t know if this should be surprising or not—to make the first film of my life with less than a $1K budget, with only one crew member, and hope to have it screened at the biggest short film festival in the world. The feeling when I learned the result was far from devastating—but certainly not pleasant. It drove me to think about what could have been better: better acting, better shot framing, better writing…

But I cannot rewind this film anymore. It is a chapter that has ended, and in some way, it has fulfilled its purpose. Initially, my main intention in making Metropolitan was to express my worldview—how elegance, though lost and unknown in the modern day, can still be beautiful. Through thoughtful rituals, stillness of moments, and self-awareness of who you are—without compromising those values.

This piece, I believe, is the manifestation of auteur theory at its finest. A film made and directed through a single mind. And in the end—whether viewers think it is good or bad—it tells the truth of my own self in the format I consider deeply sophisticated.

It is not a perfect film—far from it—but every flaw is a lesson that will not repeat in the next one.

You will be able to see Metropolitan on December 21st, 2025.

I will post an update when the time comes.

I have a confession… I haven’t got the ability to finish Atlas Shrugged, the most famous and best-selling piece of the same author—Ayn Rand. Its exaggerated, wide array of words and slow pace of story are some factors to that. From almost a thousand pages—it can be ended with half of that. But the main reason couldn’t be further than the fact that she intended to focus on “consequences” and the big picture in the role of a non-conformist creator and thinker within society and what will happen when they decided to leave… unlike The Fountainhead—where every single page is dedicated to the protagonist Howard Roark and his integrity that cannot be broken.

The writer, Ayn Rand, was well known for her articulated philosophy so-called “Objectivism,” an uncompromising philosophy of reality, reason, and individualism. It asserts that reality exists independent of consciousness, that reason is man’s only means of knowledge, and that the moral purpose of life is the rational pursuit of one’s own happiness—not sacrifice for others. Standing point for rejecting altruism and collectivism, it hails rational self-interest, personal responsibility, and laissez-faire capitalism as the only moral political system. The philosophy acts as a call to live by objective facts, not feelings; to think independently, not conform; and to rise by your own effort, not at the expense—or mercy—of others.

Despite criticisms—some calling Objectivism too radical, anarchistic, or even accusing Ayn Rand herself of being sexist (a charge that collapses under scrutiny, given her unapologetic celebration of strong, independent women and her rejection of identity politics)—her philosophy is profoundly virtuous and deeply humanistic. Objectivism honors the individual as a sovereign being, capable of reason, deserving of freedom, and entitled to live for their own sake. It defends the dignity of human life—not through sacrifice or servitude, but through self-directed purpose, creativity, and moral ambition. It is a fierce affirmation of what makes human a “noble creature,” one that celebrates the mind, the agency, and the potential to flourish based on individual free thought.

All of those can be seen in the novel The Fountainhead and the very protagonist Howard Roark, an uncompromising architect who strictly holds on to his principle, mind, and soul in every situation that no man nor woman—no matter how much beauty or intellect they have—can break or tame him.

During the early 20th century, the architecture landscape before modernism became dominant was strikingly eclectic, mixing lingering historicist revivals (Neo-Classical, Gothic, Edwardian Baroque) with new decorative movements like Art Nouveau and the Vienna Secession. Those such can be seen through the handcrafted humanism of the Arts & Crafts movement, and regionally distinctive innovations such as Frank Lloyd Wright’s Prairie School and German Expressionism; meanwhile, Beaux-Arts classicism still defined grand public buildings, even as proto-modernists like Adolf Loos, the Amsterdam School, De Stijl, and early Bauhaus began stripping ornament and experimenting with new materials.

However, it is this very idea that buildings still relied on the old-world paradigm and worldview that stuck with classic principles from the previous centuries; Roman Empire, Renaissance… so in The Fountainhead, the author designed Howard Roark to be the counterforce of architecture fashion at that time. He is a symbol of uncompromising personal integrity. Since Rand needed a style that could stand in sharp moral contrast to tradition, conformity, and committee-designed buildings, modernism—clean, functional, non-ornamental—was perfect for that symbolism. It visually dramatizes the idea of a creator who refuses to imitate the past or please the crowd. His architecture is a metaphor for moral independence.

At first, when I read the synopsis, I wondered, “How would a radical architect shape the drama, the tone, and make the story interesting?” — but even on the first page when the story is set at the University where Roark got expelled by the Dean because of not compromising to the norm of the curriculum — I knew for sure, this piece is going to give humanity a worldview unlike anything else.

“Dean: My dear fellow, who will let you (building things that do not follow the traditions of architecture)?”

Roark: That’s not the point. The point is, who will stop me?”

One thing I can promise: by the end of this book or the film of the same name in 1949—written by Ayn Rand herself and starring mature Gary Cooper as Howard Roark, though not quite the best performance of his—they both will surely make you see the ideal embodiment of human beings at their peak.

A man who refuses to bend, refuses to fake, and refuses to live for anyone but himself. A creator who answers only to reality and his own rational judgment, not to tradition, public opinion, or institutional authority.

Every major conflict Roark faces—against the media, the establishment, the parasites (anyone who lives off the mind, effort, or achievements of others without creating anything themselves) who demand his “sacrifice”—is a dramatization of Objectivist ethics: the clash between independent, creative man and the second-handers who live through others. Howard Roark represents rational egoism, not selfishness in the vulgar sense, but self-esteem earned through productive achievement and moral clarity.

The main conflicts you can expect would be seen in these following examples:

To choose between desirable love versus personal calling

To choose between reality of clout, capital, and fame but must compromise

To choose between selling out and getting a life like others versus staying on the lonesome road that has no light to shine on.

And the answer of the man named Howard Roark can be all summarized by one of dozens of iconic quotes you can find in Ayn Rand’s, personally, magnum opus in the realm of modern literature:

“I have, let’s say, sixty years to live. Most of that time will be spent working. I’ve chosen the work I want to do. If I find no joy in it, then I’m only condemning myself to sixty years of torture. And I can find the joy only if I do my work in the best way possible to me. But the best is a matter of standards—and I set my own standards. I inherit nothing. I stand at the end of no tradition. I may, perhaps, stand at the beginning of one.”