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When it comes to the topic of the most stylish men in the world, the Italians almost always trumps everybody else. French men don’t quite measure up to their neighbors (although French women are without a doubt the chicest women in the world). The English have a tendency to be stiff and too formal. Americans in general can be a bit sloppy.

STATEN ISLAND, NY -- With the history of Italy spanning more than 3,000 years, Italian style and design have become world renowned in everything from art, classic architecture and contemporary fashion to fine furniture, fast cars and stylish motorcycles.
   

LIKE a siren, the beautiful little island called to us. And so we swam, like crazed Olympic sprinters, from a cobblestone Italian town square to a serene island monastery in the middle of glittering Lago d’Orta.

There will no longer be any confusion over which Manganaro’s store is which. The one that opened 119 years ago on the West Side of Manhattan and became known as Manganaro Grosseria Italiana, or Manganaro Foods, is no more.

MILAN — With vivid color, elegant silhouettes and a back window on the body, Frida Giannini sent out her best show yet for Gucci — opening the Milan summer 2013 on a high note.
The show Wednesday was an orgy of gorgeousness, inspired by the refined elegance of the palazzo principessas in Gucci’s heyday. But the clothes never seemed retro nor vulgar.

New York has enjoyed a spectacular shift in the quality, quantity and variety of its street food in the past five years. Rome, however, has more or less remained wedded to fried rice balls and square pizza slices despite its millennial history of fast and cheap street food.

And yet, when the biannual Mad. Sq. Eats festival opens on Friday, it is a Roman snack that may threaten to upstage its New York counterparts.

MILAN — In an industry based on looks, the facts are not pretty: For the last four quarters, the Italian economy has contracted like a stagnant pond sizzling up in the scorching heat.

Visitors to Florence surely know about Cantinetta Antinori, a restaurant run by the wine company Marchesi Antinori that was called “one of the most attractive gastronomic spots in Firenze” in our last survey of the area. While there are also branches in Moscow, Zurich and Vienna, the eatery has yet to touch down on American soil. That changes on October 3 to October 6, when Isola in the Mondrian SoHo will launch a pop-up edition of the European chain.

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Staten Islanders who were planning to march in the borough's cnceled Columbus Parade are being welcomed with open arms by Brooklyn. The Brooklyn Columbus Parade Committee has extended an invitation to the Saturday, Oct. 6 event to Staten Island's Italian-Americans, and anyone else, who wants to march in or observe their parade.

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - Groups that normally participate in Staten Island's Columbus
Parade found out just two weeks before the event it would be nixed this year -
and they're devastated.

"We're heartbroken," said Luanne Sorrentino at Mrs. Rosemary's Dance Studio in New Dorp. "Heartbroken. I know the kids are going to be so sad. I had it posted on the website, we've been getting ready for our rehearsal for it."

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