“LIVE AS IF IT'S THE LAST DAY OF YOUR LIFE, BUT PLAN AS IF YOU'LL BE HERE FOREVER"

STYLE POWERHOUSE BRUNELLO CUCINELLI REVEALS HIS LONGEVITY AND SERENITY SECRETS.

- BY RICHARD DORMENT

ONE OF THE FIRST THINGS to go when you turn 70 has gotta be your ability to give a good noogie. Maybe it's your diminished grip strength, or maybe you no longer have the bodily stability or the physical leverage to really dig in your knuckles and make your buddy squirm, but at a certain point in life, noogies are really no longer on the table. Except if you're Brunello Cucinelli, the 71-year-old yet seemingly ageless Italian fashion magnate, who could give one hell of a noogie were he so inclined.

It is a hot September morning in Solomeo, a medieval village less than a three-hour drive north of Rome, and I'm sitting at the end of a long white table across from Brunello (which he insists I call him, because everyone, from his longtime assistant Francesco to his exceedingly cool daughter Carolina, calls him that) in his spacious office at the company's headquarters. One of the walls is filled with framed headshots of his personal heroes and inspirations throughout history (Saint Francis of Assisi, JFK, and Barack Obama make the cut), and Brunello's own face—deeply tan and lightly creased from a lifetime spent in the Mediterranean sun, with an angular profile straight out of a Roman sculpture gallery—would fit in nicely with the collection.

Within minutes of sitting, it becomes clear that Brunello is not much of a sitter. Over the next hour, in a rolling storm of facial expressions, hand gestures, and body movements, punctuated by frequent standing and walking, he tells me about his practices and perceptions around strength and nutrition, sleep and stress, and about building a life of deep, considered purpose. We talk about the company culture he's built. We talk about the impor-tance of daily naps. (He prefers his after lunch, no clothes.) And we talk about his favorite influencers, and by