Twice a year, every January and June, certain corners of the internet populate with photographs of extravagantly dressed men on the streets of Florence. These are the peacocks of Pitti Uomo, a Tuscan menswear trade show, flashing their plumage: fabrics in textures found nowhere in nature, jacket lapels large enough to verge on parody, ties knotted so elaborately that they would dazzle a longshoreman. Their displays are sometimes held up as examples of sprezzatura, a kind of nonchalant disregard for the rules of fashion. This belief underwrites the common myth that true style is effortless, a form of expression that arises from indifference rather than care. And yet, more likely than not, any man attending Pitti Uomo has spent the past six months planning exactly what he was going to wear on any given day of the show—the belt that would hang too long, the patterns that would clash just so. The attendees are stylish, to be sure, but they also demonstrate that style is entirely compatible with effort—not so much an outpouring of the …