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Italians cast aside a symbol of their `virility': the vest

Amid the turmoil of the Parmalat scandal and the debate over whether Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is "more equal" before the law than others, a small but significant bit of news slipped out.

Italians no longer wear vests. The government has officially consigned the classic, white sleeveless garment to the national dustbin.

Istat, the government statistics office, has informed the country that the humble vest, for decades a symbol of Italy's sweating and toiling working class, has been demoted from the national shopping basket, a list of staples used to calculate inflation.

With hazelnuts, upholstery fabric, silver spoons and miniature cars, the "canottiera," the government decided, was "in decline."

Instead, Italians are spending their money on cars, satellite dishes, exotic holidays and mopeds.

Of all the avalanche of annual state-of-the-nation information that has bombarded Italians this January -- record divorce rates, increasingly obese children, rising anti-Semitism -- the demise of the vest has touched a sentimental chord.

"Addio," said the Corriere della Sera's Gian Antonio Stella, in a piece entitled Sunset of the vest. "Will we ever forget them?"

"It's the end of an era," he wrote, adding that as the "land of the mamma" progressed, leaving the securities of the past behind, it was bound eventually to reject "maternal advice" on how to keep warm.

"The announcement surprised people, nevertheless, triggering a sort of dismay," Stella wrote.

For more than a century, the vest has been the symbol of Italy's honest, hard-working class, representing both poverty and physical strength. On holiday, the vest became working-class beach uniform, covering up pasta-filled paunches and providing perfect protection from the sun.

Since the vest was invented in the nineteenth century, film stars have made it a symbol of virility and politicians have attempted to harness its powerful populist symbolism. Benito Mussolini used the vest as a sign of earthy strength and virility.

But 60 years after the war, Italy is a consumer society and the demise of the humble piece of underwear is seen as confirmation that Italy is now officially rich.

"Vests are a sign of the poverty in Italy's past," said Maria di Salvia Baldini, author of a dictionary of clothes called The ABC of Elegance. "They are not just out of date, they have become a bit of an embarrassment. If a man absolutely has to buy a vest these days, he'll call it a `health T-shirt' instead."
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