Our Hometown Styles: The Versatility of an Italian Summer
Picture the warm sun kissing lemon trees that descend toward the sea, antique temples that stand out in modern neighbourhoods, and the smell of fresh pizza emitting from seemingly everywhere. This is the stereotypical, postcard-perfect Italy most people idealize. From cinema to fashion, Italy is the country where you ‘eat’, too superficial for ‘pray or love’!
Every summer beautiful actresses inundate our feeds with aesthetic photos from private villa in Positano or luxury yachts off the coast of Capri, wearing flowy dresses and walking barefoot on the beach. This kind of style was my go-to while at home during lockdown, as March gifted us with some beautifully sunny days whose temperatures reached all the way up to 20°C. But since moving to St Andrews, I have had to rediscover my own style and adapt it to a colder and much more inhospitable climate. My mom and I went on a shopping spree for ‘winter clothes’ the summer before my first year, and I will never forget my own sense of inadequacy throughout that process. At home, you don’t experiment: in the winter girls wear leather trousers and black tops, in the summer prints or floral patterns. There is a clear distinction between your winter wardrobe and your summer one.
Italian floral patterns are still a signature look for my summers.
Since my first year, I have realised the variability of Scottish weather could allow me to dress according to the day, rather than the season. A beautiful sunny day can bless our seaside town mid-February, while rain and wind may still persist in May. These unique conditions have allowed me to explore my own fashion limits, challenging what I had considered the seasonal status quo all my life. Tracksuits are now my go-to for a night out, and layering summer tops with winter jumpers and secondhand trousers has become one of my signature looks.
Every year over my time in St Andrews, I have become more confident in expressing myself through fashion, disregarding whether headbands belong in the 2000s or summer dresses should be worn with winter puffers. I’ve kept my signature Italian flavour for colour coordination—bags and shoes must be alike in all my looks—but I’ve lost that fear of falling short of someone else’s expectations.
Mixing and matching has become a passion of mine and also a way for me to communicate my feelings nonverbally. Now, tracksuits are no longer exclusively for sport, and heels can be worn on a daily basis. During this pandemic, I have found myself in a weird limbo where my audacity is held back in different ways; I am no longer afraid of judgement, but now I wonder if it’s worth it to make an effort to go grocery shopping.
Dressing up for yourself, rather than for others, is what fashion in St Andrews has really taught me. It has made me appreciate the clothes I wear at home, now repurposed into more versatile, everyday looks. I feel I have truly brought a part of my hometown’s organized style into the eclecticism of my university reality.