It’s honestly jarring— fashion in Italy. Even outside of Milano, I feel like Italy is known as one of the fashion capitals of the world, and in some ways, the Italians are better put together than us slobby Americans. But (and this is a *big butt*), there are also very weird and downright silly fashion choices made in this country that would never fly in America. I give you: Italy vs. America: Fashion edition.
I don’t even know how to start talking about this, so I’m just going to make a list, going toe-up:
S N E A K E R S
Italians wear all kinds of sneakers like they’re gorgeous, one-of-a-kind shoes. Women wear them with dresses and tights, men wear them with dress pants, it's mayhem.
S O C K S
Like with sneakers, socks are treated like they’re made of gold and they are also a focal point of an outfit in some cases; sparkles, pom-poms, tassels, crazy colors, you name it. I think sneakers are the shoe to best show off the crazy socks, so the two go hand in hand (or foot in foot) and also pair well with the next outfit element.
C R O P P E D P A N T S
**also could be regular pants folded up to be cropped**
The high-water pants are a staple in order to adequately show off the sneaks ’n’ socks combo. Truly, the pants are strange. Some look as though the legs went through a growth spurt in the last 10 minutes, some are purposely folded up to expose the ankles, and some are fringed in order to draw attention to the aforementioned elements.
S H I R T S
Lots. Of. Sweaters. Clothing on the upper half of the body is pretty similar to America though, so there’s nothing to see here.
C O A T S
Puffy, bubble coats are still in style here! Almost everyone has one and they come in many different colors (usually solid and without a print).
E X T E R I O R S C A R V E S
Anyone who knows me knows I am down with scarves. I’ve been known to wear two at once, and also had a portion of my senior photos taken donned in a brown tank top and a red and blue paisley scarf, so I get it— scarves are where it’s at! However, in Italy, they’re worn slightly differently than in America. Here, most women have large, almost blanket-like scarves which they wear outside of their winter coats. The scarf is placed under the hood of the coat, slightly off-center and the shorter side is first brought forward across the chest, and the longer side is then brought forward to cross the chest and thrown over the shoulder.
Something else of note is that Italians dress for the season, not the weather. For example, if the middle of March is very warm, many Italians will still wear their big, puffy coats even if it’s 21 degrees C (or about 70 degrees F) because it's not officially spring yet. So, that means you're sweating on an otherwise comfortable bus ride, but that’s fashion, baby.