No Sprezzatura At Work Ever

You will find, on your many travels around the internet, that many style guides and so called "style gurus" will tout the myriad benefits of sprezzatura, a studied nonchalance applied to your style of dress.They will tell you that this artful dishevellment will add depth to your style, that other grown men will stop in the street to admire the way you have failed to sensibly arrange the collar of your shirt or that your tie being poorly tied and facing the wrong direction will cause beautiful women to swoon as they pass. Let me tell you now that they will not, the style gurus are wrong, if they had IQs any lower, they would need watering. They forget, often, that the people reading their blogs are generally university students or men who work in offices day to day. And, unless you are Italian or attending Pitti you will simply look as if you got dressed in the dark. Please, by all that is holy do not attmept anything approaching sprezzatura whilst you are at work. These gurus constantly tell people to stand out in the office (or other place of work) by wearing their clothes in an artfully dishevelled manner. Gianni Agnelli (splendid man as he was) could get away with it because he owned the company. If any of my employees ever had the audacity to show up at work with their shirts mis-buttoned or wearing hiking boots instead of shoes I would not only fire them on the spot but I would also phone every other company in the industry and make sure they couldn't get another job.

                                  If you show up to work like this I will hunt you down and
                                                         make your life a misery.

 I will be very clear here, at work you must dress impeccably, not well, impeccably. Show up without a hair out of place, clean shaven and of spotless appearance and I promise you will look far better than any attempt at dishevellment will make you look. Here is where being an Englishman (or imitating one for you less fortunate people) can come into it's own. Forget the style gurus and looks to English understatment for your key look here. If you must have an idol then look to Hollywoods past or Don Draper in the present (Mad Men is awful but Draper wears a mean grey suit) you know the look I mean, pristine, professional. Sprezzatura has it's place, if you are going to a party or bar then by all means present yourself as you wish, but never in the office.