Every November I land in Italy expecting the light to have gone soft and grey, and every November I am wrong. The mornings are cold, the coats are out, and almost every woman on the street is wearing sunglasses.
Not pushed up into her hair as a souvenir of summer. On her face, at ten in the morning, with a wool coat and gloves. The first year I noticed it I assumed it was vanity. It took me a few more trips, and one long drive into the mountains, to understand that it is closer to common sense.
A country that makes them in the snow
Here is the part most visitors never hear. A large share of the world's good sunglasses come from a cold place: the province of Belluno, in the Dolomites north of Venice, where the valleys are white for a good part of the year. Italy's first eyewear workshop opened in Calalzo di Cadore in the late 1870s, and the valley never stopped. Luxottica began in the mountain town of Agordo in 1961. Today the area makes roughly 80 percent of Italy's eyewear, according to Monocle. Cortina d'Ampezzo, which shared this year's Winter Olympics with Milan, is in the same province.
In other words, the people who make Italy's sunglasses have always lived with winter sun. They never thought of them as a beach accessory. Neither, it turns out, does anyone else in the country.
Four reasons the sunglasses stay out
Once you start watching for it, the habit has a logic of its own. I count four reasons, and the last one is the one that matters.
- The winter sun sits low. In summer the light comes from overhead and a hat handles it. In November it comes in sideways, straight into your eyes, on every walk to the market and every drive home at four. Eye-care groups point out that UV does not take the winter off either, and snow can reflect most of it back up at you.
- They are worn all year, so they are bought once. An Italian woman tends to own one or two good pairs, not a basket of cheap ones that vanish by August. A pair you wear twelve months a year earns its price.
- They finish a coat the way they finish a sundress. Dark lenses with a camel coat or a brown knit look deliberate, never like a leftover from the beach.
- They let her stop fussing with her face. This is the real one.
The part nobody says out loud
In November, the light is low and unkind, the days are short, and nobody looks their brightest at nine in the morning. The sunglasses solve that in one move. No squinting, which is half of what makes us look tired. No need to perfect the eyes before the bakery. The rest of the outfit can be simple, because the face already looks composed.
That is why the outfits underneath are so quiet. Look at the photos here: a close, fitted mocha ribbed knit by Tensione In, made in Italy, and a brown plaid midi skirt by Barbara Alvisi with lace set along the slit. A good bag, a pointed shoe. Nothing that needs explaining. The dark lenses do the work of jewelry and makeup at once.
It is also one of the easiest Italian habits to bring home. Here in Sarasota our November sun is brighter than anything Milan sees, and we still tend to leave our sunglasses in the car once summer ends. Put them back on with a sweater. Wear them with a skirt and a knit instead of a swimsuit cover-up. You will look like a woman who simply knows where the light is coming from.
The rest is easy. Our fall knits are together in the knitwear collection, ready for a bright, cold morning.
She travels to Italy each season to hand-select the boutique's collection.
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