Bring Your Poncho

In case you were wondering if I had fallen off the face of the earth, broke all my fingers and thus had to attempt typing with my toes and never made it past the post title, or decided to quit blogging all together, I’d like to let you know that none of the above, or any of your other predictions are in fact true. I was actually on vacation in Italy with my husband and my blogging break can be contributed to several factors, such as lack of wifi internet connection in two of the hotels we stayed at, absence of mental function and ability to think straight after long days of touring Milan, Venice, Rome and Florence – tough life; I know, and in general a food induced coma every evening when we hobbled back to our hotel room. Any-hoot, all of the above rambling was my way of saying, IM BAAAAACK.

I am indeed back and with a vengeance, I was after all in the fashion capital of the world for the past week and a half, so there is no lack of inspiration for this girl, and I decided that there is nothing my readers would like more than creepy photo’s I snuck of other tourists while on my trip. Am I right, or am I right?

So before I get too serious with my fashion findings, spring trends, and general gushing about the great Italian designers I drooled over and dreamt about every night while in Italia, lets discuss what the tourists wore over the past few weeks, shall we?

First off, I must tell you that the weather was unpredictable, we saw rain, hail, sunshine, heat, what felt like Arctic temps, and I experienced sunburn on my face all in the same trip. I sure as hell didn't know what to wear, and left the hotel with my trusty trench coat every single day, often resorting to folding it into a tiny ball and cramming it into my purse when the sun came out (don’t worry, its Club Monaco not Burberry). My shoes consisted of flats, and a pair of Joe fresh sneakers.  Actually I pretty much wore Joe Fresh from head to toe for the entire trip, I had packed so many cute outfits, but for the sake of reaming comfortable in unpredictable weather and hours and hours of walking I stuck to skinny jeans, sneakers and sweaters the whole time.

It was quite obvious at times who the tourists were, we were generally under-dressed  walking around in wet shoes and could often be found wearing a poncho (see Exhibit I below)

Here I am eating rice balls in my infamous poncho before the Inter Milan soccer game

You could easily play “Spot the Italian”; that’s a new game I invented. The Italians went for warmth, and wore their black (always black, only black) puffer down jackets every single day. Even in the heat and sunshine they refused to take their winter coats off. They obviously were not buying that Spring had actually arrived, and preferred to be prepared for another chilly torrential downpour at any moment.

But when the sun came out so did the style, this tween boy band pictured below, I mean group of random guys, are a perfect example. Sitting together in the sunshine across from the Roman Forum they sat and enjoyed each other’s company in their knit sweaters and cool shades, while I pretended to snap a pic of the pillar behind them to capture their outfits.

When I packed for the trip I loaded up on coloured skinny jeans, I packed mint green, red, grey and one pair of regular plain old blue jeans. The trend was still alive and well over sea’s where I spotted so much coloured denim on everyone from tourists and locals, also THIS pair from Zara caught my eye, aren't they fun?  

And this rando girl with her guy-friend really knew what she was doing with coloured denim for every day wear.

Speaking of denim, it’s refreshing to see that everyone is still embracing the all denim, all the time look. When my brother picked us up from the airport in Toronto he made a jab at my denim jacket paired with blue jeans, he said I looked like a farmer, but then again he’s a chef , what does he know about fashion? Check out these girls, a trio of young Italian girls in Rome who all had the same curly hair and shared a love for the Canadian tuxedo. Thanks for representing.

Finally, my last creep-tastic photo is of THESE shoes

I thought we had gone through this before?  I spotted the wedge sneaker everywhere over the past few weeks, on children teens, adults and seniors, and what’s worse is its new counterpart. In store windows everywhere I spotted “used” sneakers, these are never before worn shoes that are made to look like they are scuffed up. Wtf? Here I am stressing and spending way too much time walking slowly over puddles and dog poop to avoid this very incident, and meanwhile Italians are PAYING for it? Ohh dio, is all I have to say…. Take a look at this! Would you buy a pair of dirty shoes? Well, would you? I sure as hell wouldn't  Sometimes I am totally thrown by trends and can’t fathom what designers were thinking (or smoking) when they came up with a certain item.

In these uncertain fashion times, one motto simply needs to be; “When in doubt wear Gucci.” Actually; that’s not my motto, because I don’t own enough Gucci for that to be true, but I can dream right? My last discovery in Italy, before we flew out on Saturday was the Gucci Museum in Florence. Opened to commemorate Gucci’s 90^th anniversary, in the city where Gucci was born I discovered that Gucci puts lil rain poncho’s over their shopping bags on rainy days, and suddenly, just like that, wearing a poncho never felt more chic.

Grazie Italia, for the fashion inspiration and musings. Until next time, ciao ciao.