An Italian Geek in King Charles’s Court

In an article for The New Yorker, John Seabrook profiles Federico Marchetti, the Italian fashion entrepreneur who sold his luxury e-commerce company Yoox for $6 billion and then became an unlikely advisor to King Charles III. The piece explores how Marchetti, dubbed “the Geek of Chic,” leveraged his mastery of sprezzatura—the art of effortless style—to transition from convincing Giorgio Armani to sell online to navigating the dress codes of the British royal court. Bonding over their shared love of well-maintained, decades-old shoes and sustainable fashion, the two men formed an partnership around Charles’s “buy less but buy better” philosophy. The article humorously chronicles Marchetti’s cultural missteps—Googling “smoking jacket,” commissioning a kilt he’s too intimidated to wear, and gifting the King a toothpaste squeezer as a cheeky nod to royal scandal—while revealing how this “action man” has earned his place as Charles’s self-described “Italian secret weapon” in promoting sustainability in the fashion industry.

Read the full article here.

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