There is something about an Italian summer that makes me want to dress with absolutely no restraint.
Not quietly. Not in beige. Not in the carefully coordinated “capsule wardrobe” that fashion keeps telling women we should all own.
I want linen, colour, print, crochet, ceramics, enormous earrings and shoes that look like they belong in a garden in Sicily.
And judging by the number of people stopping me in Italy and asking, “Where did you get that kaftan?”, I am not the only person craving fashion with personality.
This summer I keep returning to one of my favourite combinations: a vintage-style Italian linen kaftan covered in those unmistakable Dolce & Gabbana-inspired Sicilian prints, teamed with colourful accessories collected from different places and different moments in my life.
Nothing matches perfectly.
That is precisely why it works.
The bag is 25 years old, Vintage Karen Millen.
The Italian Linen Kaftan Everyone Asks About
A good kaftan is one of the most underrated pieces in a summer wardrobe.
When the temperatures climb in Italy, the last thing I want against my skin is anything tight, synthetic or complicated. Linen moves. It breathes. It wrinkles. It gets softer during the day.
That slightly crushed appearance is part of its beauty.
I particularly love linen when it is printed with the extravagant visual language we associate with southern Italy: lemons, flowers, majolica tiles, elaborate borders and saturated Mediterranean colour.
Think Sicily rather than Milan.
This kind of print immediately reminds me of the world Dolce & Gabbana has celebrated for decades: Sicilian ceramics, citrus fruit, religious iconography, Mediterranean gardens and old Italian decorative traditions.
Eyewear Cavalli, 2013.
You can put on one piece and suddenly you look dressed.
There is no need for ten layers or a perfectly styled outfit.
The kaftan does the storytelling for you.
And perhaps that explains why people keep asking me about it.
In a sea of predictable summer dresses, a dramatic printed kaftan stands out.
It also has that wonderful quality vintage fashion often possesses: people cannot immediately identify where it came from.
Is it new?
Is it vintage?
Is it designer?
Was it bought in Naples twenty years ago?
That mystery makes clothing far more interesting.
Sicily Has Never Been Afraid of Colour
Italian fashion is often described through Milanese minimalism and beautiful tailoring, but southern Italian style tells a completely different story.
Sicily gives us excess.
It gives us painted ceramics, golden churches, patterned tiles, citrus markets, bougainvillea and colours bleached and intensified by Mediterranean sunlight.
Why would I wear grey in that environment?
This is why I adore clothing that borrows from those decorative traditions.
A printed linen kaftan can contain yellow, cobalt blue, tomato red, green, pink and white all in one garment.
Instead of trying to calm those colours down, I prefer to add even more.
That is where accessories become important.
Pink Ceramic Bijoux From Naples
One of the things I love most about vintage style is that jewellery does not have to be valuable in the traditional sense to be precious.
My pink ceramic bijoux from Naples are a perfect example.
Ceramic jewellery has a completely different character from fine jewellery. It feels artistic, handmade and wonderfully Mediterranean.
There is also something very Italian about taking an everyday material such as ceramic and turning it into decoration.
Italy has an extraordinary history of ceramic production, particularly throughout the south. Painted plates, tiles, bowls and decorative objects have filled Italian homes for generations.
Wearing ceramics as jewellery feels like carrying a small piece of that decorative culture with you.
Against linen, it is even better.
The texture of the ceramic contrasts beautifully with the relaxed surface of the fabric.
And pink against a Sicilian print?
Why not?
Fashion becomes much more exciting when we stop asking whether colours technically “match” and start asking whether they make us happy.
Yellow Crochet From Thailand
Then I bring Thailand into the story.
My yellow crochet pieces from Thailand introduce yet another texture.
This is what makes a wardrobe truly personal.
I have never believed everything you wear has to come from the same country, same designer, same decade or same fashion collection.
Quite the opposite.
Some of the most interesting outfits happen when you combine objects that were never intended to be worn together.
Italian linen.
Sicilian-inspired print.
Neapolitan ceramic jewellery.
Thai crochet.
Each piece comes from somewhere different, yet together they become your own visual history.
Yellow crochet also has that handmade quality I increasingly appreciate.
When so much fashion is mass-produced, crochet reminds you of human hands.
You see the stitches.
You understand that someone had to make it.
And in brilliant yellow, it brings sunlight directly into the outfit.
Earrings That Refuse to Behave
Then come the earrings.
Colourful.
Italian.
And deliberately clashing.
I have reached a stage in life where I am far less interested in wearing something simply because it is considered tasteful.
I would rather wear something memorable.
If the kaftan contains blue, perhaps I choose orange earrings.
If there is yellow in the print, maybe the earrings are pink.
If everything is already colourful, I add another colour.
There is a wonderful confidence in wearing jewellery that does not politely disappear into an outfit.
Vintage earrings in particular were often designed to be noticed.
Look at jewellery from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s and you see enormous shapes, exaggerated gold, enamel, resin, ceramics and unapologetic colour.
Women did not always wear earrings as a tiny finishing touch.
The earrings were sometimes the event.
I love bringing that attitude into modern dressing.
Colour Clashing Is More Sophisticated Than Matching
Matching shoes, handbag, earrings and belt used to be considered the height of elegance.
There is still a place for that.
But colour clashing can create something much more contemporary.
The secret is confidence.
Once you commit to colour, commit properly.
A pink accessory beside yellow crochet works because both colours have enough strength to hold their own.
Add a multicoloured Italian print and suddenly the apparent clash becomes a theme.
The eye understands that this is intentional.
That is the difference between looking accidentally mismatched and looking creatively styled.
Garden of Eden Pumps
And then there are the shoes.
I team the look with what I call my Garden of Eden pumps.
They are exactly the sort of shoes that belong with this outfit: feminine, decorative, almost botanical.
With such a dramatic kaftan, the temptation might be to wear plain sandals.
I prefer doing the opposite.
Give me a beautiful statement pump covered in flowers, colour or texture.
The shoe then becomes another chapter in the story.
The overall look feels as though someone has walked through a Mediterranean garden, a Naples ceramic workshop and a Thai market and somehow worn pieces of all three.
That, to me, is much more interesting than simply wearing the latest season from one fashion house.
Why People Ask Where Vintage Pieces Come From
There is a reason strangers ask about distinctive vintage clothes.
Modern fashion has become incredibly recognisable.
We see the same luxury bags, the same trainers, the same logos and often the same silhouettes everywhere.
Vintage breaks that pattern.
When somebody sees something they cannot immediately place, curiosity takes over.
Where did you find that?
That question is almost the greatest compliment you can receive.
It means your clothing has escaped the algorithm.
It is not simply something somebody saw yesterday on Instagram and ordered immediately.
It has character.
Perhaps history.
Perhaps a story.
And even when a piece is not technically vintage, combining it with vintage jewellery and collected accessories creates that same feeling.
Dress Like Your Travels
My wardrobe has never belonged to just one city.
I love Italian fashion, but I also love objects discovered while travelling.
That is why mixing Naples with Thailand feels completely natural to me.
Clothing becomes more meaningful when it reminds you of places.
A yellow crochet accessory can take me back to Thailand.
Ceramic jewellery reminds me of southern Italy.
An extravagant print evokes Sicily.
Vintage earrings can transport me straight into another decade.
That is what I want from fashion now.
Not just something beautiful.
Something that carries memory.
Forget Perfect Coordination
My summer style rule is simple: stop trying so hard to match.
If you love the pink earrings, wear them.
If the yellow crochet technically clashes with the kaftan, even better.
If your shoes are covered in flowers and your dress already contains ten colours, put them on anyway.
There is enough restrained fashion in the world.
Italian summer dressing should have life in it.
It should move when you walk.
It should catch sunlight.
It should make somebody across a café look twice.
And occasionally it should make a complete stranger stop you in the street and ask:
“Where did you get that kaftan?”
That is when you know the outfit is doing exactly what fashion should do.
It is starting a conversation.
