Using ChatColor.of, or one of the ChatColor constants on item names or lore makes the text italic even when ChatColor.ITALIC is not used.
Attached is example plugin that gives you a stick when logging in to demonstrate this. The following is the code used to create the item.
ItemStack item = new ItemStack(Material.STICK); ItemMeta im = item.getItemMeta(); im.setDisplayName(ChatColor.of("#ffffff") + "Test " + ChatColor.GREEN + "Test2 " + ChatColor.RESET + "Test3"); im.setLore(Arrays.asList(ChatColor.of("#ffffff") + "Test ", ChatColor.GREEN + "Test2 ", ChatColor.RESET + "Test3")); item.setItemMeta(im);