🔥FIRE SALE🔥 No. 18 - An Interview with The Italian Easy Rider Francesco Vagliasindi 🏍🇮🇹
Italian craftsmanship🪚, a mutual love of Wranglers👖, and Sicilian plainclothes police officers 🛵👮🏻♂️
Francesco Vagliasindi is somewhat of a celebrity in the West Village. With a distinctive well-shaped mop top and a wardrobe inspired by American biker movies, even if he’s zooming down Perry on his motorcycle, he’s hard to miss. It doesn’t hurt that he is one of the friendliest guys in the neighborhood, too.
He’s a classic 🔥FIRE SALE🔥 fella in that he has an inspired style that harkens back to the 20th century, but he doesn’t dress like an extra in The Wild One, Easy Rider, or The Long Goodbye.
He embodies his romantic childhood visions of America and the open road but brings his own sensibility, so it is never stale, never overdone, never cartoonish. It could be that Italian “sprezzatura” that is so sought after by American men, but we can never fully incorporate, perhaps because it is a matter of spirit, not manifested by a precise combination of jawns.
Over espresso, Francesco and I talked about some of his favorite subjects–Italy, New York City, the road, and Wranglers.
Growing up in Italy, specifically Silicy, how did that influence the way you dress today? Did it have much influence at all?
For me, it's different. So I mean in Italy I had my style. I always liked this kind of stuff that I have now. But when I was a teen, I always wanted to be a rockstar or whatever. Italy is very conservative, you know? You cannot really do whatever you want. People judge a lot. Every city you go to is like the West Village. Everybody knows each other even if it’s a bigger city. So if you dress different, people stare. When I was in high school. I became the classic Italian kid: pants, a white shirt to go out. That's it. Very basic. You don’t want anybody to talk, anybody to say anything. Then I moved, and in my first three years, I really didn't like the life of the city. I didn't like New York too much. I didn't feel at home. But I think the thing was I didn't know who I was, or who I wanted to be. When you leave your home to go to another country, you leave more knowing what you're escaping from, but you don't know what you're looking for. You know, I bought the motorcycle, because I grew up riding motorcycles all my life. A little bit later, I was able to rediscover this true self of mine that I had lost over the years.
Why New York? How does your motorcycle influence the way you experience the city?
New York was the right place: everything happens here. New York is a city where you live on the streets. I love to see people, to be out, so for me, it's ideal. It (the bike) is my office; I go to many different places in one day.
We first met at Fellini because I was admiring your Wrangler jeans. What appeals to you about Wranglers?
I got here, and I became an adult. For me, my clothing is very much related to the lifestyle you know. Wranglers are perfect. I can wear it for going out. To be on the bike. You know, I get there, and you fall down. This is something I can wear to any occasion, you know? I tried to have one outfit I could use for everything.
How do you like to shop?
You know, when I find something that I like, I buy it. Yeah, I don't buy online, never... never. If I want it, I want it today. You don't want to wait a week. I don't like buying online. I'm always like... If I think twice about something in real life, I would think four times before buying it online.
You mentioned wanting to be a rockstar as a kid in Italy. It seems like that still influences your style.
I like classic rock, The Doors, Steve McQueen, that '60s, '70s motorcycle rock and roll vibe. You know, I like it because that's what I actually do. I smoke cigarettes, I drink coffee all day. It’s not only the clothing; I live the lifestyle of New York City back in the days, you know?
I feel like menswear enthusiasts in America gush over Italian suits. Is that a part of your personal style?
I like suits. I wear suits. I have bell-bottom suits, you know, vintage. I like the classic stuff. I wear a tuxedo sometimes. But either way, I don't know. American men sometimes, I think the outfits are a little bit boring. When you see the loafers and the pants and the pink shirt, and my word, like…Florida, man…what the fuck. I like classic American style. When I go to Arizona, take a road trip, I wear denim, leather jacket, cowboy boots, cowboy hat. I like the Southern style, but I feel like what's going on now is, people just wear whatever, and what they miss the most is the accessories. The finance bro style, they miss the accessories. You know, they have horrible shoes. Or they have a horrible watch. The vest…(visible disgust)
I assume you’ve taken your bike out of the city.
I went last October to the Grand Canyon. I love the road, and I like this old American culture of the countryside, and you stop at the roadhouse, and you sleep at the motel. I grew up watching Easy Rider and these kinds of movies – Jack Nicholson, Peter Fonda. In Italy, that’s what you think of America at first glance. It’s either like New York in Sex and the City or fucking country.
How is New York similar to Italy?
In Italy, the lifestyle is very based on day-to-day relations, you know, with people. And New York, I feel in the US, is one of the few places where you can do it, and downtown Manhattan is one of the fewer, fewer places where you can do it even better. Because I live here on Carmine, you know, it's like a small town. I don't know if you want to do activities, what kind of activities do you want to do? I don't know. I like to hang out. I don't need much; I sit here. That's why I love living here because I can sit here in the corner; I'm the center of the fucking world, you know? I don't need to go to the museum. I like to live simple, and that's why I don't know if in the future in New York is my place, but for now it is because I'm able to do kind of whatever I want.
Back to motorcycles, do you have any specific preferences when it comes to bikes?
I mean, Italians are not the best bikes, but the most beautiful, you know, design. This one is German. The other one I have is Japanese. Germans are like Italians; they’re a pain in the ass. They always break. The Japanese won’t even need to change the oil all the time. My grandfather used to sell Ducati in 1952 until 2012. So, I grew up with this tradition of motorcycles. I like the engine, like you know, like American South Carolina guy. He likes the engine. For me, when I hear the sound of the bike, I don't know, I get excited. I like to go to monster jam; when you see the fucking trucks ripping, and you hear the noise, you can hear the vibration in your stomach of the power. I don't know. I love it.
You mentioned your dad was a plain clothes police officer working to stop The Mafia in Sicily. Tell me more about that. Did he have a cool undercover look?
In Italy in 1975, they created this police task force on the bikes to fight street crime. Used to be in Catania, a lot of murders. You know, like people would get shot on the streets, your car will be blown up. So the cops, they were on the bikes. They work in the little streets, you know, like the West Village but full of criminality. You know, you need a bike to go in the streets. So that's my dad's job. You know, drugs, people that are fugitives, murder cases, phone taps, all that funny stuff.
I’m obsessed with Italian neo-realist movies, and I think a lot of fashion guys are, too. What do you think of them?
It’s like true Italy that became famous in the world, you know, the Italy that you romanticize about. When I live here, when I think of Italy, I like to think of that. If you go now, I hear fucking trap music, you know, everybody wants to be like a rapper. You know, that's what's going on in Italy now.
What do you think is the future of Italian fashion, culture, etc?
Nowadays Italy does have a very strong identity as Italian, you know, maybe about food, maybe about tradition, but they kind of forgot, you know, as well because it has been in an economic crisis for the past 15 years. So recession, you know, what do you want people to do during recession? And there's not a real future for…there is a future for Italians, not a future for Italy. Because, you know, Italy is very big on craftsmanship; even all the big brands like Gucci, Ferrari, they’re famous and they’re good because of the craftsmanship. What people do with their hands is like, one thing about good about Italians is that everything they do, they make it as a work of art.
For like America, China, people go to work just to go to work. Like if you work in a coffee shop, it's just a job. In Italy, if somebody works in a coffee shop, maybe that's their job, it's not a job, it is their job. Everybody here does something but wants to do something else. And that's becoming normal everywhere in the world with globalization, you know, everything around, you know, what's going on, you can see what other people do and you always want to do more. But I, in my opinion, being an artisan like the guy that makes the furniture by hand, it's not a low low low profile job, it's actually being an artist. And nowadays, when you think of that, if you tell an Italian kid about that job, they say, ‘oh, that's boring, that's like you don't make money.’ So this has to change for Italy. That's what's gonna happen actually, because that's what the big brands want to do: create an awareness of the state of art of a product.
You can see Francesco zipping down the streets of the West Village, having an espresso at Fellini on 7th and Perry, and follow him here.