For love-to-be-smug Brits, there are plenty of easy laughs to be had at the expense of Italians – particularly the men. Two weeks ago, I was there working over the weekend. On Saturday, the newspapers were reporting that 100,000 women had signed a petition despairing at Silvio Berlusconi’s compulsive chauvinism. On Sunday, the big story concerned a politician named Piero Marrazzo, a filmed tryst with a transsexual prostitute and a blackmail plot.

My Italian companions blame all this on an older generation’s inability to understand the nuances of contemporary sexual politics. Italians of all generations, though, miss cultural nuances that are screamingly obvious to you or me – which is what makes them laughable. Musically, they’re irony-free: I sat in a coffee bar full of intellectual types listening to a song called Do the Chihuahua, and nobody smirked.

The most glaring dissonance of all is sartorial. Italian men lack the synapse that makes British men cautious about colour and so reluctant to take pride in our dress for fear of appearing vain. Now, Italian men can overdo things, vanity-wise – viz my Anglo-Italian girlfriend’s traumatic memory of an old Roman lover she once discovered blow-drying his shoes. Yet Italian men do dress, on the whole, much, much better than we do.

While British man will experiment with colour if it’s on a new away strip, Italian man regularly dabbles with a radical palette. Practice has made perfect. One fortysomething man I met sported a bottle-green, thick-cord jacket with a black jumper, light shirt, yellow jeans, black trainers and – as a finishing touch – an ivory silk scarf. It sounds stomach-churning, but, as an ensemble, worked perfectly.

Italian men dress effortlessly for the vagaries of autumn, while we struggle around too early in our winter coats, either hot (with them on) or cold (when we rip them off in distress). Their secret is sovrapposizioni, the art we call layering but barely understand. The fundamentals consist of a well-cut jacket – or sometimes a gilet, if you can believe it – worn over a bright piece of knitwear with a beautiful shirt beneath. Jeans (neither skinny nor baggy) do just fine down south – but flannels look good too. Sovrapposizioni demands that you can see a little of each layer. It is so ingrained as an autumnal philosophy that jackets with built-in but detachable gilet-effect pettorini (chest protectors) are popular both downmarket and up. Department store La Rinascente makes an affordable own-brand version; Loro Piana and Corneliani are exquisite but expensive.

You don’t have to buy Italian to steal the look. It’s ours already – we’ve just forgotten it. The Italian man’s standard is based on English style in the early 20th century. They’ve refined it a little, rendered it Italianate. Start with a jacket from Hackett (moleskin is good, circa £300), a half-zip jumper from TM Lewin (not that colourful, but on sale online at £39.50) and a cracking shirt from, say, Aquascutum, and you’ll be claiming back your heritage.

Notes on Italian style

Be bold with colour

Sovrapposizioni – layers – are the key to your autumn wardrobe

Begin with a well-cut jacket and some bright knitwear