Tomorrow is October, and in Sarasota nothing about the air will say so. I used to find that a little sad. Then a friend in Rome told me that her city has had the same problem for centuries, and solved it with a single word.
The word is not about the weather, exactly. It is about what you do when the weather refuses to change on time. And for most of its history, it came with instructions about what to wear.
October's second summer
Romans call it an ottobrata: a warm, bright, still day in October, the kind that arrives after the first cool spell and makes everyone forget it happened. You will hear it said the way we say "what a day" — che ottobrata — usually by someone squinting happily into the sun on a terrace that should, by the calendar, be closed.
Rome's own tourism office describes October there as almost a second summer, with soft light and a mild climate. Meteorologists use the word too, for a recurring high-pressure pattern that parks itself over the central Mediterranean at this time of year and keeps the days dry and warm.
So far, so pleasant. But the older meaning is the one I love.
A day out, and a reason to dress for it
Until the early twentieth century, the ottobrate were outings. After the grape harvest, on Sunday or Thursday mornings through October, Romans left the old neighborhoods and headed beyond the city gates — to the vineyards past Porta San Giovanni and Porta Pia, the meadows beyond the Milvian Bridge, and above all to Monte Testaccio, where wine was kept cool in caves dug into its slopes.
They went to eat, dance, play bocce and drink the new wine. Those who could afford it rode in a carrettella, a little egg-shaped carriage pulled by two horses hung with bells. Accounts and engravings from the time show seven or nine young women packed inside, dressed up, wearing hats covered in flowers and feathers. The one seated beside the driver had her own title: la Bellona.
And here is the detail that tells you how seriously it was taken. The day was expensive — food, carriage, clothes — and some Romans took belongings to the city pawnshop to be properly dressed for it. A comic chronicle from 1860 tells of a husband and wife who each pawned the other's clothes.
What she saves it for
Nobody rents a carriage anymore. But the instinct survived, and you can see it on any warm Sunday in Rome this month. The best of the summer wardrobe does not get put away the moment September ends. It gets saved for exactly this: one more perfect day, treated as an occasion rather than an accident.
That is the part worth borrowing. We tend to meet a late heat wave with our oldest shorts and a sigh. The Roman answer is the opposite. A warm October day is a gift, and you dress for a gift. The good dress, the one you wore twice in June. A real shoe. Lipstick, even if you are only going to lunch.
The dress above is the kind I mean — a satin shirt dress that fades from stone to indigo, belted at the waist, light enough for a ninety-degree afternoon and just dressed enough to feel like you went somewhere. In Florida, where October is one long ottobrata, it may be the most useful dress in the closet this month.
So the next time the forecast says summer isn't finished, don't argue with it. Put on the thing you were saving and go out. If you want to see what else is built for a second summer, Maria's picks are in the dresses.
She travels to Italy each season to hand-select the boutique's collection.
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