Why Italian Vintage Summer Style Gets People Talking

When it is hot in Italy I don’t want beige, and I don’t want a capsule wardrobe. I want linen, colour, print, crochet, ceramics and enormous earrings.

This summer I keep going back to one combination: an Italian linen kaftan in a Sicilian print, the kind Dolce & Gabbana is known for, teamed with accessories I have picked up in different places over the years. Nothing matches. That is why it works.

The bag is vintage Karen Millen. It is 25 years old.

Woman in a blue and yellow majolica-print kaftan and turquoise flats walking past a shop window with an orange leather bag

Or team it with a lemons bag. The lemon-print one in the photographs further down is my Kate Spade.

The Italian Linen Kaftan

A good kaftan is one of the most underrated pieces in a summer wardrobe. I found mine in Arezzo. When the temperature climbs, the last thing I want against my skin is anything tight, synthetic or complicated. Linen moves and it breathes. It wrinkles, and it gets softer through the day. For me that slightly crushed look is part of its beauty.

I love linen most when it is printed the southern Italian way: lemons, flowers, majolica tiles, heavy borders and strong Mediterranean colour. Think Sicily, not Milan. It is the world Dolce & Gabbana has drawn on for decades: Sicilian ceramics, citrus fruit, religious images, gardens and the old Italian decorative traditions.

Laughing in sunglasses, a woman poses with her arms out in front of a giant handbag advertisement

The eyewear is Cavalli, from 2013.

With a kaftan you put on one piece and you are dressed. No layers, no styling. People stop me in Italy to ask where I got it, and nobody can place it. Is it new? Is it vintage? Is it designer? Was it bought in Naples twenty years ago? That is what makes clothes interesting.

Sicily Has Never Been Afraid of Colour

Italian fashion usually gets described through Milan: minimal, beautifully tailored. The south tells a different story. Sicily gives us painted ceramics, golden churches, patterned tiles, citrus markets and bougainvillea. Why would I wear grey there?

A printed linen kaftan can hold yellow, cobalt blue, tomato red, green, pink and white in one garment. I don’t try to calm that down. I add more. That is where the accessories come in.

A woman in a blue and yellow majolica-print kaftan, with a Sicilian head-vase motif at the hem, laughing in a shop doorway

Pink Ceramic Bijoux From Naples

Jewellery doesn’t have to be valuable to be precious. My pink ceramic bijoux from Naples are the example. Ceramic has a different character from fine jewellery. It looks handmade, and it looks Mediterranean.

Italy has a long history of ceramics, in the south above all. Painted plates, tiles and bowls have filled Italian homes for generations. Wearing ceramic as jewellery is a way of carrying a small piece of that with you.

Close-up of a smiling woman wearing a long necklace of pink ceramic beads with tassels over a yellow and blue floral top

Against linen it is even better: the ceramic next to the relaxed surface of the cloth. And pink against a Sicilian print? Why not. I have stopped asking whether colours match. I ask whether they make me happy.

Woman in sunglasses and a floral kaftan with a red and green stone necklace, holding an orange-brown leather bag in a café

Yellow Crochet From Thailand

Then I bring Thailand into it. My yellow crochet pieces from Thailand add another texture again. I have never believed that everything you wear has to come from the same country, the same designer or the same decade. Italian linen, a Sicilian print, ceramic from Naples, crochet from Thailand. Each comes from somewhere different.

Crochet also shows the hands that made it. You see the stitches. Somebody had to sit and make this. And in bright yellow it puts sunlight into the outfit.

Woman laughing outdoors in a chunky yellow flower necklace with red and green stones and a yellow tassel earring

Earrings That Refuse to Behave

Then the earrings. Colourful, Italian, and clashing on purpose. I have reached a stage in life where I am far less interested in wearing something because it is considered tasteful. I would rather wear something you remember.

If the kaftan has blue in it, I might choose orange earrings. If there is yellow in the print, pink. Vintage earrings were made to be noticed. Look at the jewellery of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s: big shapes, a lot of gold, enamel, resin, ceramic and colour. The earrings were sometimes the event.

Woman in a printed kaftan walking past a shop window with a red-orange leather bag and a pale lemon-print tote

Colour Clashing Is More Sophisticated Than Matching

Matching shoes, bag, earrings and belt used to be the height of elegance, and there is still a place for it. But once you commit to colour, commit properly. Pink beside yellow crochet works because both are strong enough to hold their own. Add a print with every colour in it and the clash becomes a theme. It looks meant.

Woman in a blue and yellow printed dress and turquoise flats swinging a red-orange leather bag past a shop window

Garden of Eden Pumps

And then the shoes. I team the look with what I call my Garden of Eden pumps: feminine, decorative, almost botanical. They are by a brand from Bangkok. With a kaftan this loud the temptation is plain sandals. I do the opposite.

Why People Ask Where Vintage Pieces Come From

We see the same luxury bags, the same trainers and the same logos everywhere. Vintage breaks that. When somebody can’t place what you are wearing, they get curious. “Where did you find that?” is about the best compliment there is.

And even when a piece is not vintage itself, wearing it with vintage jewellery and things you have collected gives the same feeling.

Orange-brown leather handbag and a lemon-print carrier bag held out beside a printed kaftan, against a billboard

Dress Like Your Travels

My wardrobe has never belonged to one city. I love Italian fashion, and I love what I find when I travel, so Naples next to Thailand feels natural to me. The yellow crochet takes me back to Thailand. The ceramic is southern Italy. The print is Sicily. My clothes are my travel souvenirs.

Forget Perfect Coordination

My summer rule is simple: stop trying so hard to match. If you love the pink earrings, wear them. If the yellow crochet clashes with the kaftan, even better. If your shoes are covered in flowers and your dress already has ten colours in it, put them on anyway.

Woman with windblown auburn hair wearing a pink bead necklace and a long yellow tassel earring over a floral top

There is enough restrained fashion in the world.