The Reason I Dressed
It was a grey Saturday in January, which usually means rain in Italy. Rain and humidity. We decided to go to Bologna with some friends but started the day off with lunch in the restaurant of the Modern Art Museum MAMbo.
The post-holiday sales in Italy start AFTER the Befana which is on January 6th…no boxing day here! Since Bologna is a much bigger city than Modena, with more stores and better sales, we decided to do our post-Befana shopping in Bologna.
The only problem was the weather. I’m not complaining! This winter has been so mild, especially compared to the ice storms, and daily snow bombardments they’ve been getting in Toronto. in fact, anytime that I feel like complaining about the 90% humidity, and the slight chill in the air, I check the weather in Toronto and then shut my mouth!! … I’m not a winter person!
The great thing about living in Italy, is that if I miss the snow I just have to take the car for an hour drive into the Apennine Mountains!
But there is the RAIN. In January the days are grey, wet and humid. It’s hard to know what to wear.
What I Wore
I wore my Dafna luxury rainboots (I did a whole post about them here “Getting Over My Fear Of Rain With Luxury Rainboots“), my cropped real leather gloves, and a new jacket with REAL leather sleeves, that I found for under a hundred bucks here.
Parka Jacket with Leather Sleeves
With the desire to stay chic and fashionable, but also warm and dry I searched to something that was grey-weather appropriate.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed the trend of a parka-like jacket with leather sleeves thats been going around fashion-blogger land?!
Well, almost 99% of the ones I could afford had fake leather sleeves. And I really didn’t want to spend a lot of money for fake leather, because I have this bad habit of wanting my clothes to last!
For those of you who understand fake leather, you know that it does not age well. So I went out on the hunt, and found this coat, with a jersey hood, double zipper, drawstring waist and REAL LEATHER SLEEVES for 70 Euro ($94 USD) found here.
I love it! The grey sweatshirt material underneath AND the black cotton jacket on top are attached. Each layer has its own zipper, so with one jacket I can create a few different looks.
The only problem with this jacket is that I am petite (under five feet, 149 cm), and this jacket was also supposed to be petite. It’s not! A friend of mine who is as tall as my husband tried it on, and it fit her much better than it fit me. On me, the waist was too low and the back of the jacket was also too long.
On this grey day I felt like wearing a hoodie, blending with the scenery and being “dark”.
What do you wear when it’s grey outside?
