You're Encouraged to Eat at Brunello Cucinelli's Fashion Shows
A conversation with Brunello Cucinelli, Italy’s patron saint of cashmere, isn’t so different from the banquets he throws during his semiannual men’s and women’s presentations in Florence and Milan.
He hops from topic to topic in a way that reflects his approach to serving a meal, one minute rhapsodizing about his favorite pastas, the next about the nobility of cultivating precious yarns. The connecting thread is an appreciation “for the beauty of the world,” which was a credo attributed to the Roman emperor Hadrian that has become gospel for Cucinelli and his acolytes.
“Everything you need is right here,” the designer says. When he shows a new collection—like he will in a few days during Milan Fashion Week—he’s not just inviting guests to take in the work. A luxury completist and a food lover of the highest order, he wants them to embrace his omnivorous gusto for the finer things in life.
At the Palazzo Corsini in Florence during Pitti Uomo, or at his Milan headquarters during Fashion Week, they are welcomed into a world of abundance—catered multitier spreads that look like Old Master paintings, if said Old Masters spent months in residency among Italy’s top purveyors of meats and cheeses, and some of its finest chefs. Look to your right: rosettes of mortadella. Left: salami studded and buffed like terrazzo. On the buffet’s horizon: waves of puntarelle with anchovy, glimmering green and gold from olive oil pressed on Cucinelli’s own estate in Solomeo.
Even though he is feeding fashion’s elite, from buyers to his highest-net-worth customers (tech titans who rely on his cashmere with a dependence most of us feel only for oxygen), Cucinelli truly believes that he’s serving sustenance of cultural and culinary significance for hundreds of his closest friends.
“I’m showcasing my country to people from around the world. It’s important to give everyone more than just a small bite,” he says.
Few designers mix food with fashion as seamlessly. Sure, Giorgio Armani has his Ristorante on Fifth Avenue; Ralph Lauren has Polo Bar nearby, plus restaurants in Paris, Chicago, and London; and Gucci is opening a new Osteria da Massimo Bottura on Rodeo Drive this month, following the success of the original location in Florence, but for Cucinelli the food is of a piece with the clothing, not just an opportunity to get into the restaurant business. Showing a new collection without feeding his friends, he feels, would be akin to blasphemy. In Cucinelli’s world, cashmere, carciofini, and caponata are soulmates.
For the last five years his feasts have been prepared by the Cerea family, of the three-Michelin-star restaurant Da Vittorio, near Bergamo (davittorio.com for reservations). “They know how rigorous I am,” Cucinelli says, adding that their conversations about menus can get intense. Occasionally the chefs want to add something modern to the mix. “With me, they shouldn’t go there,” Cucinelli says. He insists on classics only. Roberto Cerea says that means the Parma ham is produced by Ruliano and the Tuscan ham comes from Fracassi. The olive oils span Italy, from silky Ligurians to spicy Sicilians. Tuscany and Piedmont, Cerea says, send their finest Chianina and Fassona beef.
All designers take a bow at the end of their shows, but Cucinelli actually enjoys playing host. Does your mezzi paccheri with tomato sauce need a hit of parmigiano? He personally walks around with the cheese grater. Could your panzanella use just a splash of olive oil? Cucinelli has the bottle just in case. And if some red sauce stains that immaculate white cable knit sweater? Non fa niente. It’s only fashion.
This story appears in the March 2020 issue of Town & Country. SUBSCRIBE NOW
You Might Also Like
