There is a sound Venetians know in the fall that visitors rarely forget once they have heard it: a siren, rising over the rooftops a few hours before the water does. It means the tide is coming up into the city, and that it is time to think about what is on your feet.
It also, as it turns out, settles a question most of us get wrong every fall without ever noticing. Not the boots. Something a little higher up.
The water keeps its own calendar
The Italians call it acqua alta, high water, and it has a season. It can happen from October into early spring, with November and December the most likely months, when a southerly wind, low pressure and a high tide line up and push the Adriatic into the lagoon.
The city measures it in centimeters at Punta della Salute, at the mouth of the Grand Canal. Around 80 centimeters, the lowest paving in St. Mark's Square, the lowest point in the city, starts to get wet. Around 100, the city lays out raised wooden walkways along the main routes. The record is 194, in November 1966; the second highest, 187, came on November 12, 2019.
Since October 3, 2020, Venice has had MOSE, 78 steel gates at the three inlets of the lagoon that rise from the seabed and close it off from the sea. They go up when the forecast reaches about 110 centimeters. Below that, the water is still allowed in, which means that on a moderate fall morning, St. Mark's can have a shallow sheet of lagoon across it and nobody considers it an emergency. It is simply a Tuesday in November.
What a wet hem does
Boots solve the feet. What they don't solve is fabric. A trouser hem that rests on the shoe, or breaks over it in a soft fold, spends the whole day brushing the ground. On a damp stone street it takes on water, wicks it upward, and dries with a pale line of salt along the edge.
A wide leg cut to the floor is worse. It drinks from every puddle it passes. Our full-length grey plaid trousers are a joy on dry pavement; in a city built on a lagoon, that length is a liability.
So the trousers that make sense in Venice in November stop short of the ground on purpose. Not capris, and nothing that looks like it was borrowed from a summer wardrobe. A tailored trouser, often in a sober check or grey, that simply ends before trouble starts.
The hem rule
Here it is, and you can check it tonight. Put on the flat shoes you actually walk in. Stand sideways to a mirror. The hem should end at the top of the ankle bone, and no fabric at all should touch the shoe, front or back.
If you can see cloth resting on the heel of the shoe, it is too long for weather. If the hem sits well above the ankle, halfway up the calf, it is a different garment altogether, and it will feel like July. The ankle bone is the line: high enough to stay dry, low enough to look like a real fall trouser.
It works far beyond Venice. A Florida downpour in October, a wet parking lot, a restaurant terrace after the sprinklers: the same few inches keep a hem clean all day. Our grey check cropped trousers land right on that line, with their own belt, and they pair with a matching houndstooth jacket when you want the whole outfit to look deliberate.
And if you want color, put it higher up, where the water can't reach. A clear red knit jacket over grey check is about as cheerful as a wet November morning gets.
The water will come and go all season in Venice, a few hours at a time, and life simply carries on around it. That is the part I love most. A little planning at the ankle, and the day goes on. More trousers cut with that line in mind are in the pants.
She travels to Italy each season to hand-select the boutique's collection.
Keep reading
For Eleven Days, Venice Dresses for the Evening
Italian Women Don't Choose a Skirt Length. They Find One.
