Sophia Loren, the Classic Italian Beauty (Angelina Jolie looks like she could be a cousin of the young Sophia).  Click on the image to go to 'Fashion Net', the self-proclaimed "Guide to All Things Chic".

Site visitor 'Artigiano' is a U.K. based clothing and accessories online mail-order store that ships throughout Western Europe.  The style is all Italian, but the sizes, prices and comfort are easier to live with.  Click on the image above, from their site, to visit their online store.

The Valentino store in Milan.  Click on the image to go to the Valentino website.

Click on the book cover to read more about it, before downloading it.  The e-book does not require a special e-book reader for you to read the it on your computer.

Style and Beauty

Most Italians have an an innate esthetic sense that, at times, can be very annoying.  The times I'm thinking of are when:

• you're on a date with an Italian man, and he never misses an opportunity to admire his own reflection.  
• or when Italian men comment on your outfit, tell you what you're doing wrong, and how to correct it, and they're right. 

The non-annoying times concerning the innate Italian sense of style are when Italians are:

• creating art out of a window display, 
• or decorating their towns for the holidays, 
• or designing furniture and fashion and lighting,
• and the list never ends.

I worked in advertising for a while, and was amazed at how many Italian Art Directors there were in the industry.  As one of them pointed out to me when I mentioned this, they are rarely the Account Executives because, and this is a quote, "Italians find deadlines irritating". 

Italians can have rather rigid ideas of beauty, however.  Forget the eye-of-the-beholder stuff.  We're talking Leonardo's multiples and measurements!  

I heard an Italian television presenter comment an a beautiful comedienne (she really was a delicate looking beauty) saying, "and she wasn't bad looking, despite being much too short to really be considered beautiful".  Those present in the studio agreed with her.

Weight 

You won't see many overweight people in Italy.  If you do, they will most likely be men, or grandmothers or great-grandmothers.  The worry about pudgy, inactive, TV-watching children is a new phenomenon.  

While Italians do generally eat a healthy diet, one of the main reasons for the lack of overweight women is economic.  There are few well-paid jobs that go to women in Italy, which means that, as in all traditional societies, the main route to financial security for a woman is through marriage.  And Italian men rarely marry overweight women.

I recall overhearing a young Italian man talking with his mates, commenting on an overweight, yet very beautiful, young woman.  "Look at that one!  How could her mother let her get like that?"  

And, yes, it is the mothers who critique, humiliate, badger, berate and starve their daughters all in the name of helping them find a husband.  I overheard lots of that too, and saw some young women underdeveloped due to long term under-nourishment.  

Yet ridiculously, there are the Italian men who love women with big appetites for food (but not fat women) because they assume these women have big appetites for sex, too.  

These same men explained that they would never marry this kind of woman, only use her as a lover, because if they neglected that kind of wife, she would cheat on him.

And I recall often seeing groups of men, whose bellies protruded so far they could not see their own feet, critiquing women harshly as they passed by.  Perhaps they considered their bank accounts large enough not to apply the same harsh standards to their own appearance?  Just a thought...

When such a high value is placed on low body weights, eating disorders are a natural consequence.  I witnessed women:

• over-loading on bran, 
• popping laxatives before meals, 
• rushing to the toilet right after meals to vomit everything up, 
• living on regimes of coffee and cigarettes for days at a time, 
• and subjecting themselves to starvation.

If you wish to be as thin as Italian women, stop and reconsider your wish.  

You should aim to reach a Body Mass Index of between, roughly, 20 and 25 to be at a healthy weight (page with BMI tables with metric and imperial systems)  

And I would strongly recommend you do not follow the unhealthy examples I cited above.  They can cause long-term damage to your health.  

The best advice I've found for losing weight safely is this, from the So You Wanna site.

Click here or on the image above to go there and learn a lot in a short amount of time.

And go to my practical page Tips for Feeling Full on Less and Reducing Appetite, that relies on lots of basic of the traditional Italian diet.

This one, WomenClothingToday.com Inc. Canada, makes all their products of silk (great prices for 100% silk):  dresses, blouses, scarves and shawls.

Books About Italian Design

And to find books about Italian designers and fashion you can search Amazon.com with this Search tool, to see what's available, what people say about the books, and what they cost.  

Just enter 'Books' in the 'Search' field, and the designer's name, for example (or 'Italian fashion design'...), in the 'Keywords' field.  Then click on the 'Go' button to see the list of books.  

Amazon also sells fashion.  You can search what's on offer in the 'Apparel and Accessories' category.

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