Two days later, Marchetti, who lives in Milan and on Lake Como, was having breakfast at a downtown café outside the Police Building, where he keeps an apartment, talking about his relationship with King Charles. When they met for the first time, in 2017, at an event in London, Charles was still a prince. They bonded over their shoes. “I said, ‘Your shoes look amazing!’ And he said, ‘They’re twenty years old!’ ” Marchetti recalled. “They were perfect, absolutely perfect. And my shoes were perfect, too, and ten years old.” Charles has long been devoted to promoting sustainability in the fashion industry, part of his broader environmental advocacy. “He is someone who is wearing for twenty years the same coat—the camel,” Marchetti noted. He recited a motto of the King’s: “Buy less but buy better.”journey-inline-newsletterinline-newsletter