Vanity fair: I take less than 5 hours to get dressed, says Italian diplomat Ugo Ciarlatani!

"I take it as a compliment," says Italian consul general Ugo Ciarlatani, responding to a survey that says men from his country love to preen in front of the mirror

Mirror, mirror on the wall, which country is the vainest of them all? The answer, according to a recent worldwide survey by market research company GFK, is Italy. As per the results, Italian women spend nearly 6.3 hours a week grooming themselves, while their male counterparts spend around 5 hours a week in front of the mirror. That’s nearly 42 minutes a day.

When ETPanache reached out to Italian Consul General, Ugo Ciarlatani, for comment, he said, "Italy is the land of beauty and form, of the beautiful and the wellmade. If being vain means wanting the best always, even from your own self, I take it as a compliment." While Ciarlatani agrees with the survey findings, he believes that today’s men spend more time on grooming. Five hours a week sounds accurate to Ciarlatani, but he also feels that it depends on the individual.

Ciarlatani said, "I take less than five hours to get dressed, but my wife feels even that is too much. Women don’t have to bother about two things that men have to: the perfect shave and the perfect tie-knot. That said, I still think Italian women take longer to get dressed than men."

With so much time spent on grooming, the results are there for the world to see. Case in point: footballers Gaetano De Rosa and Alessandro Del Piero or actor Giulio Berruti. When we asked Ciarlatani about who he thinks is the hottest of them all, he offered a cheeky reply. "I’m the best! If I didn’t say so I wouldn’t be doing justice to the results of the survey."