By Max Girombelli

Once again, it is a pleasure to be back with all of you. For this edition’s column, I decided to take a new approach. Instead of discussing the season’s trends, I want to share with you a very exciting project I am working on with Duca Sartoria.

As the saying goes, we must start at the beginning. In this case, it was many years ago, when I first met Maestro Arturo Di Modica, who came to me to make his wedding suit.

Maestro is best known as the famous sculptor who dropped the world’s most famous bull in front of the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street one crazy night in 1989. It was just before Christmas, and Arturo and a few of his friends drove a flatbed up to the 60-foot tree in front of the NYSE, and unloaded a 7,000-pound gift: the Charging Bull.

In a flyer distributed the next day, Arturo stated that he created the sculpture after the stock market crash of 1987 as a symbol of the “strength, power, and hope of the American people for the future.” He paid for the sculpture out of pocket because the economy was in a dismal place, and he felt the market-and New York in general-needed a bull ride.

After all these years, it may be time for another bull ride!

Twenty years after the installment of the first bull (and after Arturo sold seven additional big bulls around the world) it is now time to create a new more dynamic way to inspire the spirit of strength, power, and hope. This is why I am proud to introduce all of you readers to the limited edition Charging Bull Jackets. Only 100 of these will be available. The jacket is made with a Super 150′S Super Fine Wool in dark blue, which is the perfect fabric for 10 months of the year. It is completely wrinkle-free and water resistant. The lining is in a nice bronze color-just like the bull-and the buttons are made with the original forge of the bronze used for the Charging Bull. The back of the jacket features an embroidered tone sur tone of Arturo’s original drawing of the bull, and the back of the collar features embroidered script: Charging Bull.

On the inside, we will monogram your name as well as the number of your jacket. Arturo will wear jacket No. 1, and I will keep No. 99 for myself. All of the other numbers will be available for the select few who want to feel special and “charged.”

We set the price at $2,900 because 2009 marks 20 years that the bull has been standing guard on Wall Street.

Adding to the appeal (because art and beauty are not always enough), profits will help finance an International School for Artists and Sculptors in Vittoria, Sicily-Arturo’s birthplace. The school will be the first and the only one of its proportion. I had the pleasure of visiting the site two summers ago, and the Maestro gave me a tour of this amazing work in progress and the surrounding property. I really loved it very much.

You can clearly see, and most importantly feel, in his new project the determination and the testa dura of a Sicilian artist, who, along with always creating amazing works of art, wants to teach and share his talent with students from around the world. This is a dream that will come true, because Arturo does not take no as an answer.

This time around, I hope all of you to feel and enjoy the new bull ride, and do it with style….

Ciao a tutti,
m@X
Duca Sartoria
425 Madison Ave, Suite 1903
New York NY 10017
212.582.3225
ducausa.com