Sprezzatura is an Italian word reputed to have first appeared in Castiglione’s book Il Cortigiano in the 16th Century. It signifies an effortless virtuosity and includes marvels that do not betray the effort expended in their execution.
It is today a word traded mostly by fashionistas to denote the quality of looking dapper without trying. Depending on how strictly you construe the appearance of not trying, real world examples of sprezzatura can easily dwindle to extinction.
Most examples of sartorial sprezzatura adduced by those who still use the term are ironically far from it. A quick search online will turn up articles and photos that depict the following sort of thing:
As an aside – you’ll find a lot of cigarette/cigar in bocca in the examples proffered by sprezzatura splainers. This preponderance notwithstanding, smoking has nothing to do with sprezzatura. It’s a vestige of the smoking is cool era perpetuated by people whose deepest thought is the status of the foulard in today’s wardrobe.
The foregoing examples may connote sprezzatura at a buttoned up Karl Lagerfeld convention but just wouldn’t qualify in most other contexts. The number of bracelets and unbuttoned jacket buttons in Exhibit A disqualify that example for breaching the effortlessness requirement. Exhibit B is too pressed. Exhibit G must be disqualified on account of the wristwatch over the cuff; it is overwrought.
To be sure, Gianni Agnelli, the man in Exhibit G, has undeniably exhibited sprezzatura. Consider Exhibit S below:
But not always.
This is not to take away from Gianni Agnelli. The man had style and he wasn’t shy about making unconventional choices. And it is precisely those choices that betrayed the deliberate aforethought that he invested in his look. To achieve sprezzatura in the context of dress one must evoke a nonchalance and ease that cannot be squared with ostensible premeditation.
Just to be clear – sprezzatura does not require that Agnelli or anyone else for that matter give no thought to what they are wearing and accidentally achieve fashion icon status. It must just appear as though it was all pulled together effortlessly. Exhibit Y does not give that impression – it is a studied look.
By the same token, if your personal image is an institution’s investment that is being managed by professionals, then if they achieve the required balance that gives off sprezzatura – they have achieved it. You won’t have it….but you’ll look like you do when they dress you.
Regrettably, the term is today primarily associated with men’s clothing and those who strive for it do so in their attire, often with failed albeit vibrant results. Left in the manicured hands of the faddy it has become a caricature of its essence. What they are bandying about as sprezzatura lacks the subtlety and ingenuity that makes it such a compelling concept and worthy achievement.
Consider – you’re invited to dine at a friend’s house. You enjoy an aperitif, conversation flows, you sit down to eat, delicious food is served, you finish off with a night-cap and return home. Sprezzatura. You arrive, you’re invited to a cocktail and asked to choose the drink and then the liquor and time dilates while the ice is broken off the block and the ingredients are combined and the shaking and what not and while you’re having your drink your host is in and out of the kitchen trying to finish the cooking and then there’s the service and the special wine pairings and the special glasses and the ones for burgundy are dusty and now the reprimands and the dusting etc. Not Sprezzatura.
Sean Spicer salsas with Lindsey Arnold on Dancing with the Stars. One side of that equation exhibited sprezzatura while the other wrangled his weight around the dance floor in a desperate attempt to escape a swarm of invisible murder hornets.
For any art, craft or activity that has its adepts, there is a subset that performs boggling feats with remarkable ease and elegance; think a seventh dan Aikidoka flipping his opponent versus Chris Farley’s flipping a spectator into the trash on Letterman and then somersaulting to his seat. Both are impressive flips. The former, however, impresses in its sprezzatura. The latter is impressive in many other ways but definitely not because of its easy elegance.
Even the inanimate can be appreciated for its sprezzatura. Behind the dial of a mechanical watch there are a myriad minute wheels, levers, gears and springs operating in complex harmony to power and imperceptibly move two simple hands around an axis to mark time. Add to the movement a minute repeater and the sprezzatura quotient skyrockets.
Sprezzatura is our way of making believe that, in this tough miserable world, wondrous marvels flourish with gentle ease. It’s an anodyne for the Human Condition. Train and strive quietly towards excellence and mastery so you can then perform your marvel and inspire others who would have despaired and never tried knowing what it takes.
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