Grande Pignolo

[uppercase]

My Italian being Zero, I found a hand written note in the pocket of a just-received coat made for me in Italy.

Under my name - this notation above.

Not intended for me, but probably a note jotted to the cutter/tailor, anyone here in the know, please let me know what we have here ….

[Concordia]

I'm seeing a translation of "pignolo" as a fussy, fastidious, meticulous person.

Are you a real pain in the ass with this guy? Or perhaps he just want the coat-maker to be sober when working on yours?

[alden]

Pignolo is decidedly pejorative and could be translated by "nitpicker." It's a person who is so focussed on detail that he loses sight of overall reality...so someone who sees trees and not forests, but not just trees, the bark of trees, but not just the bark of the trees, the molecular structure of the bark, but not just the molecular structure of the bark, the atomic balances or imbalances that....

UC, someone sent a message to the tailor who made your coat to be careful!

Now the question is how does the coat look and feel? This is a pic request.

[alden]

Here is an exercise that might help.

I wear reading glasses and have a light correction for distance. I don't mind wearing glasses and most often they are very useful to me. But most of the time I go without them and the nice crisp images that normally surround me take on a soft blur. Its one of the best blurs you don't have to pay for or drink a lot to obtain. Its a nice natural blur without the hangover. All the annoying detail of life vanishes and your world becomes decidedly Impressionistic. Its a big picture world, cinematic with soft edges and Chopin playing in the background. Lovely. I like this world. Give it a try.

Oh, if you're a brain surgeon, forget the above and take your glasses!

Cheers

[Luca]

I concur with Alden's translation.

[Screaminmarlon]

[uppercase]

Ha!
…and I thought my tailor loved me!!

Actually this is very funny and very interesting.

Here, with this "grande pignolo" comment, we get a little bit of unintended insight into a tailor/client relationship.

And this human interaction is what makes bespoke so fun and fascinating to me.
I must thank my tailor for leaving this little note in the pocket of my coat, obviously intended for me to find. (…and you thought that bespoke was about tailoring …ha!!)

To me, it is an ode, a sonnet to our relationship over the past 12 months, which she obviously could not fully express nor reveal to me directly. So she left me this thoughtful note in my pocket.
I can only imagine what she truly wanted to say me.

But first, allow me to declare my innocence; I am not the person Alden projects and describes as suggested by the word: pignolo.

No! It is much more serious than that.
I am not pignolo. !!

I am the last person to be obsessed with detail and minutiae.
On the contrary, I am a generalist, a dilettante, an occasional client of bespoke tailors, shady bars, and consumer of aged prime beef served with diluted vermouth-loaded martinis, followed by red wine of unfashionable vintage.

See the world in a pleasant blur?? …indeed, in what other way could one otherwise tolerate this world ??!!

Moreover, this is obviously the only manner in which one could possibly indulge time and time again in this infuriating world of bespoke. Does anyone here really visit their tailor sober …?!

So … why does my tailor declare me an asshole??!! It is sobering thought to consider.

But I don't think she does.

She probably did not mean it in the way you here cynically interpret it.

Grande Pignolo??!! Not me!!

It is probably your own fault for interpreting this personal note to me in this manner.
(and I include you who post with all of those smirking yellow faced inexplicable emojis)

Is there no other charitable interpretation out there in this cold internet world to being a Grande Pignolo…??

[Concordia]

Maybe it's the name of the maker she was going to send it off to?

I suppose you could always ask-- just to make sure she doesn't have the wrong e-mail address on file.

[Luca]

why does my tailor declare me an asshole??!!

I shouldn't put it as strongly as that, dear chap.
Do you really equate being fastidious or picky with being an a-hole?

At any rate, I feel quite sure that such opinions are expressed about the best of us; we simply do not have the ‘privilege’ of being made aware of them.

I recall a great passage in the Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities in which one character (a D.A., I think) by happenstance overhears a waspish comment about himself from a woman and Wolfe talks about “…the pangs of men whose egos lose their virginity as happens when they overhear for the first time a beautiful woman’s undiluted, full-strength opinion of their masculine selves.”

[alden]

UC,

A translation can be good or bad, accurate or beautiful as in the P. Valery formula, but it is rarely if ever cynical.

By translating pignolo as nitpicker, we were giving you the most generous, brotherly and empathetic option. It could have been a lot worse. But do go out for a second opinion.

The most troubling detail in this whole story is not pignolo per se but the Grande that precedes it. Its one thing to be a blockhead, for example, but its entirely another to be a “big” blockhead.

If the Grande was a reference to physical stature you could argue that it might apply to someone else or not. But more than likely, the adjective was intended to add emphasis.

So its pretty clear that whomever penned this viperous annotation did so with malice and forethought. (sorry)

Oh, and by the way, don’t we all imagine that the ladies who fawn over us actually do love us. If only the world were so.

Had we not bitten on that ghastly apple.

Cheers

[old henry]

From a tailors point of view...
A customer of mine ordered an eleven button, high buttoning clerks vest. He wanted piping around the neck and armholes and he wanted it with room to move but also wanted it to look tailored. We chose a vintage Smith Woolen 17oz charcoal cloth and he is having puter buttons made up. A very nice , respectful gentleman. He said to me, "I'm sorry to give you so much trouble".
"No no no" I said. And I explained to him that this is what custom tailoring is. . It is customizing to what the customer wants. ( custom-ize...custom-er ). A customer wants what he wants. thats why I have a shop.
If the customer is unreasonable, and I am sure uppercase is not, that's a different story and I can remedy that too.

[JCH]

UC, this is great stuff. Thanks for the laughs.

[hectorm]

But do go out for a second opinion.

I just read an eulogy of the great Italian actor Nino Manfredi and he is called a "grande pignolo" by his best friends and colleagues. They meant it as an affectionate and respectful compliment, he being a person who paid attention to minor details ("as a fastidious watchmaker") in his profession.

[alden]

Well that’s an interesting idea. We’ll have to ask UC if he had been performing monologues for his tailor. That might be the solution to this mystery. She found his acting so impressive, she placed a note in his jacket comparing him to Nino Manfredi. Voila it was all so simple.

And the “grande” in this case is exculpatory in the sense that is was meant as affection. You know sort of like when you hand your Golden retriever a bone and say, “Come over here you BIG dummy!” And he replies, “Aarf, aarf.”

The only trouble with this explanation is that the message was not murmured with salty Mae West affection by the tailoressa, it was written down and placed in a coat pocket.

So I am afraid if we are going to help UC understand what happened we are going to have to keep on looking for solutions to this BIG sartorial mystery.

Keep the ideas coming guys…

[davidhuh]

Gentlemen,

this is indeed one of the most entertaining threads since quite some time

We all think to know who we are. But we are not always in control of how we come across

Cheers, David