Berlusconi bandana sows hair transplant rumours

ROME (Reuters) - Italy's Silvio Berlusconi can't seem to live down his unusual choice of holiday headgear.


After days of fashion debates over a white bandana the prime minister donned earlier this week during a walkabout with Tony Blair in Sardinia, the media is now speculating he may have been covering up a recent hair transplant.


"Initial curiosity has become suspicious gossip in response to the news that the premier was also wearing the bandana at night, something not even pirates do," Corriere della Sera daily wrote on Thursday. "Was he hiding something?"


A handful of newspapers cited eyewitnesses claiming to have seen Berlusconi enter a hair transplant clinic run by Dr. Piero Rosati in the northern city of Ferrara on August 5.


But the doctor, called one of the five best hair surgeons in the world by la Repubblica daily, denied the speculation.


"If my name is mentioned in the papers, I'll deny it. I deny it now," he told left-leaning la Repubblica. "Berlusconi never came into my studio, Berlusconi is not my client."


The prime minister's office did not comment on the rumours, while Rosati's clinic was closed for vacation.


It's not the first time Berlusconi's appearance has set tongues wagging.


The 67-year-old image-conscious politician disappeared from view for more than a month over the Christmas and New Year holidays and when he finally emerged in public he appeared tanned and taut after a facelift and diet regime.


Berlusconi said his wife persuaded him to undergo cosmetic surgery.


"I like the way I look. I feel fine. I look in the mirror and I like what I see and I think I'm more pleasing to others too," he told reporters at the time.


Still, a few observers are wondering how Berlusconi's bandana managed to eclipse important discussions with Blair.


During Blair's two-day visit to Berlusconi's Sardinian villa, the two published a joint statement urging a peaceful solution to the standoff in Najaf.


"Our home-grown media doesn't have the lenses needed to distinguish what's truly important and what's just a bandana," Il Giornale, a newspaper owned by Berlusconi's brother, wrote in an editorial on Thursday.