The Reason To Dress
On Monday, I shared the story of how I ended up in Italy. At some point, I lived for a year in Bologna. Bologna is a magical place to be, famous for its twin Asinelli towers, medieval architecture, unfinished Duomo in the Piazza Grande and red clay bricks.
In the next few months I’ll be posting a lot of pictures from Bologna, because now, that I don’t live there anymore, it is one of my favorite places to go on the weekend. On this particular night we hung out in Piazza Grande, went to the SenzAtomica exhibit and strolled through my favorite side streets to shop at antique mercantile stores.
Bologna is only twenty minutes away by car or train from our house. To some Italians, that is like going to the other side of the moon. I’m not kidding. There are some Italians that never venture more than 15 minutes away from their house. They work, shop and socialize all within that radius.
When I tell people that in Canada, for a few months, I was living outside of Toronto in the suburbs, and that I would commute 1 hour (or more) by car to work and 1 hour back home every night they look at me like I am spewing daggers from my mouth. With a mix of awe, disgust and fear!
Reality Check
In the US and Canada gas is CHEAP. Maybe even too cheap. In Italy, people pay on average 1.8 Euro a litre, which is $2.62 Canadian per litre or $10.48 per US Gallon. Imagine what life turns into when you pay that much for gas. Our car is a Diesel, manual shift car and I try to coast as much as possible to save money. Oh and i walk EVERYWHERE! We also get to use the company car, which is a Volkswagen Passat that runs on methane gas that is pressurized with a normal gas reserve.
As I was saying….
What I Wore
I am totally in love with my new boots. They are made by the brand Peter Flowers, a 100% made in Italy artisan brand. I have written a bit about artisan brands here and why you should love the small brands and fear the big ones to get the most bang for your buck. I’ve also written about category 1 (must-haves) and category 2 (trends) clothes, which is like my fashion spending philosophy.
And let me tell you these boots are definitely category 1s, meaning I will be wearing them out before they wear me out. They are comfortable, come in half sizes (so they fit perfectly), are very high quality supple leather and for FLAT SHOES THEY ARE SEXY!
Over the knee is where it’s at! You can find the brand Peter Flowers sold through the luxury boutique Luisa Via Roma (for around $425), or you can score a pair from last year’s collection here for about $215.
WORTH EVERY PENNY. The leather is AMAZING, we’re talking real leather, not that covered, totally gross leather that has been hitting the shelves the last few years with this leather shortage crisis (I’ve written about that here). Plus, they are the only boots that I have never had to break in. (I apologize in advance for the number of times you will see these). I predict over the knee leather boots will continue to be a huge trend for the next three years…at least.
My bag is by Toty Bags in Torino and they are offering a free real leather makeup bag to all Reasons to Dress.com readers , find out about it here. My scarf is a wool knit, chunky scarf by Jacob, my leather moto jacket is by Le Chateau (no longer available, wrote a post about it here), and my sweater is my husbands. I’ll be doing a whole series on how to style your mans clothes next week.
Anyone else invest in a pair of over the knee boots this season?
Fashion link-ups!
Every week I try to link-up my style posts with these fashionable ladies. Visit their sites for some inspiration & to discover new bloggers!
