It has been celebrated in many movie or image during the Italian boom years. The B24, called Aurelia, was depicted as a Caravaggio by Dino Risi in the movie “Il Sorpasso”, an extraordinary movie that crisscrossed Italy. Vittorio Gassman and Jean Louis Trintignant got off the mythical Aurelia a long time ago and we climb on board, on the Flaminia with Raffaella Di Caprio, a blond angel, the only one who had permission to tell us: “come on, handsome, get in. Let’s go for a ride.” Would you say no? Raffaella, another Italian dream ready to turn into an absolute star, she interprets desire. Wind in her hair, the blond drives on, you look at her thinking she is yours now… but it is not so. She starts her crazy race, she does not divide, there is no room for two and Aptitude is with her already… with you obviously.
IS THERE ANYTHING MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN SIMPLICITY? BEAUTY IS LIKE A BREEZE, ONCE IT TOUCHES YOU IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO FORGET IT. In the Country of food, a marriage is forever, sitting around a table is a passport to taste-land, to the very first experience of happiness. What can you do sitting around a table for five or more hours besides eating? Glances are exchanged over red wine, over fake and distracting words…
Pulcinella, Harlequin, Columbina, Pantaloon, Gianduja, Doctor Balanzone, Rugantino, Brighella, Meneghino, Stenterello come on, there is plenty of room in Italy for Carnival. Aptitude also loves to parade in a mask. What where you expecting? A pure and chaste Columbina? A distracted and shy Harlequin? Pulcinella dancing on the streets of old and tired Naples? Nope! Carnival is fat, full of glances and misunderstandings where everyone is on the lookout for the damsel in costume ready to get lost in the crowd. Opportunity reveals our true nature. Here we celebrate Carnival and its most hidden pleasures, trying to hold on tight to anything we can grasp. And so, take off the mask, tomorrow is another day, full with her. Just like Aptitude, full of itself.
Soon to be bride. Aptitude guys, look but forget about her, for also the girls will have a hard time forgetting the groom. Gabriel Garko is marring her, yet he is not the only man whose gaze turned upon Adua lately. She received a call from Paolo ‘Mr. Oscar’ Sorrentino. She will be a young Veronica Lario in the movie “Them” that will hit the theatres next year. Is it clear now why Berlusconi lost his head? Adua never loses her head though, that is the effect she has on everyone else. She is one of the new stars of Italian cinema, a wonderful woman with a child-like gaze, you can give her a ride in a Bentley or a shopping cart, she will always be herself, you cannot avoid staring at her thinking you are daydreaming. Aptitude is the sideline of a dream, the dream you wish you could live, the transgression of a gaze, the provocation of an idea. Leaf through if you dare.
Don’t stop her, she likes to look beyond, to run and discover what other people are doing, where they live, what they believe, running and running with no end. Don’t stop her, her heart beats fast and she wants to know if there is room for her, for her little dreams. It is her sun, the sun of Naples that she always carries with her. Are you thinking about it beautiful Maria? A travel-loving Italian woman. She will be in Los Angeles, the Italian Miss Universe candidate, and maybe next to her she will have someone more narcissist than herself. Maybe Aptitude?
Micol Ronchi, the ‘made in Italy’ in the world’s most famous ‘made in the USA’. Playboy, a dream-like realm you can leaf through. I am Aptitude, a treasure chest full of desires, and Micol exceeds desires, she’s the reality of Italian beauty, the perfect fruit to be tasted. Cinema, Radio, Fashion, TV, Chiambretti’s muse, she messes up the lens, sighs and fogs it up, lights it up with a smile, and directs it with her gaze. Please, forgive me if I’ve brought you where she is, but I am Aptitude and I love making you suffer.
She was blond, besides being tall. Blond like gold; a natural, blinding blond. A gaze that offers you her eyes as a gift, while you do everything you can to avoid them. Looking at her seems already too much, being looked back is a generous and mistaken act. Blond like her skin, a Venus to admire, you can caress her with your thoughts, almost grasp her, she is a dream you harbor in silence, hoping for the day when she will ask you to caress her. It is my way of catching beauty, to bring it close, distracting you all of a sudden from everything you are doing. It is the way I do things, pretty similar to yours, that is why we are very similar you and I. I choose you, she chooses me, and you choose Aptitude.
“Put some clothes on!” is the first thing a Sicilian girl ears before she goes out. “It’s hot, mom” she answers, and yet ever docile, she covers herself, she knows she has to do it. Her land, her tradition, the style of a life lived by knowing that some things are possible while others are not. She runs on the street, the dust lifts the gowns that fall right below her knees. Then she turns, one, two, three, ten thousand times. The door to the house is far behind, stop running girl, hold on, let yourself be tempted by the heat, let the first sweat drops kissing your breast run free. Let yourself go, behind the thorns there’s Aptitude, there’s temptation…
This is Urus, the soul of a super sports car and all the convenience of an SUV: this and much more is the new Lamborghini, the first Super Sport Utility Vehicle in the world. It is inimitable and not easy to even imagine wiped out. The sound is the unmistakable sound of Lamborghini engines; you would recognize it among thousands, just like the perfume of your woman ready to fight the fight to have you all for herself. Urus is emotion, strong personality, pure design, and an absolute sports soul. The Lamborghini Urus is one of its kind. It is a real Lambo, ready to respond to your commands, fast, sporty, dynamic, your daily companion. Original, unrepeatable, incomparable, precious and particular. Could Aptitude miss out on the latest Lamborghini marvel? Aptitude is beauty, and the Urus is beauty beyond belief.
I feel like doing it all by myself, not sharing myself with anyone. He is there, maybe not, and I walk wishing for someone else to follow me, someone who wants me because he has never had me. I might give in, you are lingering in the air and I want you to touch me, to take me as I am, now not later. In a little while I will not be the same and he will take me as he is used to since I am his “thing” and I will forget this little black lace dream. Please, let me transgress before it is too late. Aptitude, when will you knock on my door?
Mulberry Street in the early twentieth century was the Italians’ home in America. Now there is “little” Italy there, and looking at it from above you feel like you’re looking at an old postcard sent more than a century ago. Chinatown has gobbled Little Italy; the one depicted with faith, passion and violence by Sergio Leone in his masterpiece “Once upon a time in America”. Don Vito, Michael, Connie and Santino would have no reason to wander around the streets of this small Italian boot inside the Big Apple. It fell down like Luca Brasi, and got up again like Jack la Motta. The Italians in America nowadays roam between 40th and 50th Street in the heart of Manhattan. Wearing jeans or a suit, they look American to the smallest details. Aptitude wanted to look out from a balcony and catch a glimpse of something that no longer exists.
Do you understand me? Have I made myself clear? What is beauty? It’s strange but beauty is a moment of sensations that confuse the body of a man with that of a Woman. The lines have the same intensity; the choice is up to you.It’s impossible to improve beauty by dressing it You have to make it dirty to enhance it. A hobo bent over in theCold of the Great Apple can give you a feeling of infiniteSadness, yet that is his beauty.Omar and Aptitude, together, are beauty. They didn’t meet by chanceOn the roads of New York, or maybe London, or maybe it was Miami, no it was Paris… We decided to go mad with him in a mental institution closed for decades near Milan.What a confusion beauty creates. An eye and a still of his image, I had to dirty it.Omar dresses as morning or maybe it’s evening but it doesn’t matter.Beauty has no time, it walks with you.I went in an attic to find what i was thinking of i wouldn’t need it anymore, I wouldn’t have found it if I searched for it. I threw on the back seat of my old car some clothes worn by time and their smell mingled with the leather of the tired car that asked only to be parked. We roamed a lot and than we choose the most raw, dirty, childish possible place to find the difference between beautiful and ugly, between opaque and light, between madness and its intangible beauty. Change and he changed. Come down I’ll take a picture. Look at the rest, I twill be like being with us among those old walls abandoned, tainted by the fear of not being and passing time. Yet he is now. Written by Maurizio Catalani
I am the night. The night you’d like to share with me. The night you are looking for, I am Lena the night you desire. I spent our night in Miami. It was hot, very hot. I had to take my clothes off, drenched by humidity. I changed my hair, I roamed a lot but not enough. I tried to find a part of you and for you I took off something, but not my skin. I am Lena Erickson and I feel better when I know you are watching me. You prefer me blond or dark-haired? Red or pink? The colors are the night and the night of Miami lies ahead. I am with Aptitude And he talks about you. He looks at me and he tells me to imagine that youAre watching me but I pretend not to see you. You know that the night in Miami blends with dawn? What if we pretend to spend that dawn together? Aptitude tells me to look at you, but you can’t touch me, not at night. You can only watch me.Far I roamed this night! They watched me as I stroke the poses for you and them. This is modeling. Making you dream while my dreams blend with yours, you and I are not that different, maybe we share the same thought. Miami by night is a nice place, gives you a sense of living and of doing whatever is beautiful to live for. Aptitude is a large vase of desire and I plunge my hand in it Trying to collect everything I could. Would you like to dress me in the colors of the night? I strip myself at night… you’d better invite me to Miami…Written by Maurizio Catalani
It’s 2.30 pm on a warm afternoon in March, hot and magnificent as only Miami can be. She has just arrived from Los Angeles, where she has called home for the past 2 years. The photographer and his team, 10 gorgeous boys, and myself are patiently waiting for her in the hall of the W hotel. Towering wedge heels, very short shorts, and a mane like a beautifiul lioness… you couldn’t miss her, Aida Yespica, has arrived. It has almost been10 years since I last saw her in Milan, and if you are wandering how her body looks now, the answer is: she hasn’t changed. It’s as if time stopped for her alone, and a 20 year old Aida Yespica is standing right before my eyes! She’s not on a diet, she is not vegan, and she loves pasta! So, it’s all thanks to the DNA!From the W hotel we all move together to the photo shoot location: a luxury villa on the exsclusive Palm Island in Miami Beach. The back stage looks like a womens paradise, there are so many beautiful shoes that even Carrie Bradshaw would be envious! I asked to Aida what size she wears, 9.5 she said. Perfect! Just like me, I was seriously considering to steal a pair!From the bathing suites to the bangles, and from the necklesses to the handcuffs designed by Agent Provocatour, everything in her wardrobe sweat sensuality… If you are expecting a super socialite life consumed with partying and late night rendez-vous, you are wrong. Aida told me, she wakes up very early in the morning to take care of her very charming 7 year-old son. She brings him to school and then goes to her english class followed by acting school. She then only takes a break to go to the gym. A daily routine, very different from the one she had in Milan, when Aida used to be a partygirl. Life has taken her far from that scene to place she now feels very happy. She said, Los Angeles is the place where she found her balance and her peace. Aida has become more of a homebody, and likes to spend most of her time relaxing at her house. But if you want to make her happy, she enjoys a nice meal at Nobu in LA or Cipriani when she is in Miami. She likes Social Networks, especially Instagram, but recently she has confessed, to making some mistakes. She would share content then after a few minutes delete it. She understood that using social networks can be dangerous, and it is much more beneficial to hire an exellent press office! Even with the flaws of social networking, Aida continues to enjoy using the applications to share with others how she lives and what she likes. At this moment Aida is looking to go into the Cinema industry, she wants to be an actress like the beautiful Angelina Jolie, one of her favourites. It seems that Aida will partecipate in an important cinematographic project, but for now it’s top secret, rumors say that she is going to act in “spanglish”. But for now, mum’s the word!Are we ready for the new phenomenon after Sofia Vergara?We will see!Written by Marianna Di Tommaso
You know, at times I get tired and run through the streets of Miami without even looking if the sea is calling me? Have you ever tried to run and be forced to stop because you’re short of breath? She made me miss it. She was alone but unique. She was running and the sea was watching her, usually it’s the other way round. Time froze me, a few moments to tell her that she couldn’t avoid being on the pages of Aptitude. We went round in the sand and my lenses strived to have the sun behind… yet the sun was there, right before me. There’s no need to talk to her, I let her move on her own. Rarely I don’t talk and I don’t ask the model an expression or tell her how to move or position the parts of her body. That’s good Tatyana… Do what you want for once I too like to watch and let the sunlight blend with your moon colored skin… There is no reason not to believe that God has created the woman, there is no reason not to believe that she isn’t divine.Tatyna lives under the skies of the world and when she drops her clothes the world falls at her feet. I let her run, smile, touch lightly her face with her hands, ruffle her hair, frown. She was ever beautiful and her fragrance stamped the sweet smell of the sea that touches Miami. We met again and she looked in the pictures the moments spent together.She smiled and looked like she was watching the pictures of someone else maybe distracted by her own beauty. Hard to know what you can do the following day. Tatyana is one of those women that can feel your calendar… alone…Written by Maurizio Catalani
Katherine for a day. Ocean Drive for a day. A day for you and me, alone, with her. Let her run on and on up and down that road that cuts through Miami. It’s the way to the sea and the sea is the cradle of the city.Do you want to walk over it step by step with Katherine Schule? Hop on Aptitude and get down at the end of the day. The sun is high and Katherine loves “hats”. Don’t cover her face… even if it doesn’t matter, she is beautiful anyway. They look at her, they watch her and it doesn’t happen often in Miami where beauty is at home. Cars line up just to have her for a minute and caress her body with their body work. Also the police stops by. “What about us?” You too. Beauty is a law to be respected. Katherine might have been born in the 1930s or 1970s or Tomorrow. Her beauty’s timeless. I take off the hat, I let the cars go by, I take her far from the traffic on Ocean Drive. She’s all for us now. The wind picked up the sand on her face and she points her eyes where she desires. She takes a look around and moves her hands between forehead and locks that keep on brushing the long eyelashes that adorn her brown eyes.One, two, maybe three moments frozen in succession on her face; Katherine Schule is Ocean Drive with the beach on her face, the hair blowing in the wind like the green palms and her legs long like the hot tarmac miles of the Ocean in Miami.Written by Maurizio Catalani
She made me lose my temper. Her naked body gave me no waiting time i had to have. I drank minutes; I threw them to the wind.I sent her flying up and down over the sun bathed streets and each time it seemed that my camera was framing her for the first time. Carrie has wings and she flies high over Miami. The color of the sky has no meaning. Carrie is dictating the rules. The cloud shadows and the hot sun await her to decide what to do.They caress her body without touching her, like light reflections that carve time in a beating of wings… No need to look for her, she will find you. She is always been there since you have always dreamed, followed, desired her.She turned naked towards me; she turned and turned over an over. I asked myself which Carrie I preferred. I gave up asking questions I enjoyed the time had with her for me, for you, for us. I am Aptitude and nothing is mine and i keep nothing for myself. Before shooting she asked my how id wanted her, how I wanted her to move, how to look at me.I held my breath she was always beautiful, perfect, her skin shiny and slightly bathed by the Miami sun. Then I turned and she was gone. I thought I had imagined everything and that nothing had ever happened. And than I understood... She had flown away. Dreams have wings.Written by Maurizio Catalani
It only takes one look to fall in love. Paolo Sorrentino as the “muse” of his new movie, “Youth”, has chosen Madalina. An Oscar winning body and gaze for a director who entered Hollywood from the main entrance. Madalina is a diamond from Romania and for thirteen years she has been a model in Milan. Now, New York, Los Angeles and Miami are her new home. “When I heard that Sorrentino had chosen me I almost brake down and cried…” that’s what happened to me when I saw her. She dreams to be an interior designer. She buys no clothes or bags, but furniture and furnishings for her home, her real passion. Try and ask her which is one of the things that she holds the dearest. She will give you the answer that you would never expect from a girl with the world at her feet. It is a foundation, which partly bears her name. It raises funds for various projects. In Nairobi, Madalina’s sweet smile caresses the face of an orphanage with 98 children. If you ask her what she likes of her job she answers candidly: “Giving dreams and emotions”. The same I experienced when I turned and I met her breath. I wanted to capture her eyes, to freeze her gaze, to let her lips touch my lenses. That is what I wanted from Madalina, to be kidnapped by her face and to dream with you with open eyes. Nowadays Madalina is a star shining over the most influent cities. She too loves to count the seconds of her life, which changes daily for the better and makes her dream. Just like we adore her Great Beauty.Written by Maurizio Catalani
“Next big thing”, in South Africa that’s what the call the girl from Wellington. Her blue eyes pierce you like two beaming lasers. Nicole pouts, but that is her beauty. I tried and tried againTo take pictures of her I didn’t like, but the result was always the same. Nicole looks at me like a little girl, a teenager, a twenty year old, and a forty year old. It’s the woman herself. It is her feminine beauty that enchants and lets it all be carried away through image and reality, mixing them up. Taking your eye off the viewfinder and looking at her while her eyes seek yours is a stroke of the same pen. Nicole doesn’t ask, she doesn’t have to.Her face, her body outlined in the lingerie, her ever-perfect hair, no matter how it moves about. I played with her without either one of us knowing it, or even realizing it. I tried and tried again to see if in one frame I could freeze a wrong moment, but Nicole does not know that I was asking the impossible of myself. She seems made of silk; she looks like she’s so soft and light that she would fly away with a gust of wind. Yet she projects such sweetness and sensuality that while she’s speaking, looking at you and walking you ask yourself if such a beautiful and delicate creature could really exist. You want to stroke her, and looking at her, you fell like you’re doing it. Nicole embarrasses you with her little smiles that caress a small and apparently pouting face. But then you stop looking and begin daydreaming. Nicole is the face of a fawn, a body designed and an irresistible veil of innocence.Written by Maurizio Catalani
A beautiful loft, a wardrobe full of clothes, perfect for each day and every hourReady to be worn.Giuliana instead loves her lingerie and that’s the only thing she would like to wear. It’s not a bright, sunny day, but she’s there, what else do you need? Her eyes seem fallen from the sky, her body drawn by Giotto.Her hips mingle with the rest of her body and her perfume is a sixth sense drug. Giuliana is wonderful, you have the feeling that you will never see one like her, the perfect and non-perfectible unexpected, you have the feeling that it will be impossible to meet one like her in ten or twenty more years.Her skin is soft like her smile and her words. Her movements disarm and let Aptitude caress them with a thousand shots. You can’t stop watching, desiring. Second turn into minutes of endless desire.She stops to gaze at the clouds of the huge building wrapping them and you can’t avoid capturing everything about her, and she turns to look at me as if she meant to tell me something… that I would never forget. Believe me, being Aptitude isn’t easy, but it’s easy to describe her, writing with pictures her endless charm.She’s tired, in a few moments we will leave her. She lies on the white sheets, loosing her body in them; she looks at us, her fawn eyes seem to talk to you about her an about everything else.Believe me.Written by Maurizio Catalani
The dark side of the night. It’s her, a companion of our thoughts; Mute, she drags you into solitude and searching.A veil of the moon lights up Miles in the Miami nighttime. The gaze, the face, the body, everything madeTo let her dream and raise the mild temperature accompanied by the wind that blows in warmed by the ocean’s waves. One, two, three, one hundred shots, yet the form is the same.Miles Bugby’s aesthetic talent never misses a beat.We wander in the night looking for a bright spot, yet he is the light.Enough is an old shutter or grating enclosing the gate of an old garage and he becomes part of the whole by magic. Take a ride with Miles at nighttime in Miami. The gaze of a thousand “shes” tries to capture his, to daydream about him, to freeze that instant to have him for at least an hour. Miles is not for all of them, but for one alone, she who has what he has, everything.Our night with Miles ends at dawn and Aptitude thanks him for the time spent, time set forever by that instant of light which describes him for you in all his extraordinary physical allure, his magical charm able to drive crazy all the girls we came across in Miami. Then again, this is what Aptitude is about, beauty without limits.Written by Maurizio Catalani