5 style mistakes to avoid as a tourist in Italy After all, there's no need to make yourself recognizable every single time

When you travel, comfort is key — everyone knows that. Especially when visiting Italy with its scorching summers, its steep cities, and the extensive walking that tourist itineraries so often demand. The tourists who have been flocking to Italy in droves for decades now face an at times agonizing dilemma: how to combine the comfort needed for long walks while staying in tune with the elegance of the places they visit? The problem is often solved by not bothering to address it: after all, their fashion sense is now proverbial, and German tourists in sandals and socks have become such a cliché that the combination of socks and sandals has come full circle and become almost fashionable. Emphasis on "almost."

Nevertheless, however hard they try, foreign visitors can almost always be spotted from a mile away, often because of the way they dress, swinging between overdressing and underdressing. It's easy to understand not only why social media overflows with guides on "how to dress in Italy" — which mostly consist of (futile) advice telling tourists not to wear skimpy flip-flops and micro-shorts into churches — but also why, given their ubiquitous presence, tourists have now become part of the Italian landscape themselves and, with their poorly chosen outfits, frequently risk ruining it.

Here, then, are five style mistakes to avoid if you're a tourist in Italy.

1. The "Riviera Look"

We coined the term ourselves, but it describes a very specific type of tourist in Italy: a floral dress that typically falls just below the knee (in America it's literally called a "travel dress"), enormous diva-style sunglasses straight out of a classic film, a wide-brimmed straw hat of unrealistically grand proportions. It's a look that is certainly not incorrect or in poor taste, but it has by now become a cliché that defies all understanding.

The point is that this look is like the fake accent in old Hollywood films: nobody actually dresses this way abroad, almost no Italian woman would wear it for a day out, and it seems to exist solely for those who come from outside to visit Italy, thanks to some form of implicit social contract. Fortunately, nobody lives in a Giuseppe Tornatore film, and so even the most romantically inclined foreign visitors are perfectly entitled to dress as they would on any ordinary day, without cosplaying as Gina Lollobrigida in her golden years.

2. The Old Money Dandy

Often a young man from Northern Europe — Scandinavian or Hanseatic — but also British or American, the Old Money dandy may or may not come from a wealthy family, but one thing is certain: he has left his boyish clothes behind and now wants to dress like a man. How? Naturally, with a shirt — white, blue, or white-and-blue striped — linen trousers (often semi-elasticated) in colours so neutral they defy description, and, more often than not, a curtain cut resurrected from the '90s and frequently slicked back.

Other accessories of the look: espadrilles or white sneakers that would not have impressed the Lübeck banker grandfather who made the family fortune in the early 1900s; a puka shell or bead necklace, invariably white, as testament to luxurious tropical travels; thin metallic sunglasses. Particularly fascinating is the colour palette, rigorously limited to two or three shades of a deathly pallor; as is the tendency to be photographed with the brooding gaze of an homme fatale. The secret to making this look work is to have no personality whatsoever.

3. The Slobs

They are mostly men with at least two children under nine, dressed just like them. Their outfit is clear proof of their moral character: these are men of integrity, straight as an arrow, so serious that they could not possibly concern themselves with frivolities like dressing appropriately for dinner or visiting the most beautiful architectural masterpieces on the planet. Like children, they must be comfortable at all costs and in every context.

An iconic look: a monochrome t-shirt in colours ranging from taupe to pale blue, the inevitable technical-fabric shorts, sneakers fit for crossing the Dolomites, and the equally inevitable sporty sunglasses — often the only accessory that hints at some aesthetic sensibility beyond the most bare and brutal functionality. Add to this baseball caps or, in the worst cases, straw fedoras, and backpacks or fanny packs among the most unsightly and cheap ever conceived. What strikes here is not so much the practical and, let's be honest, unflattering look, but its invariability: it is because of these gentlemen that La Scala has had to spell out a dress code for its audience.

4. The Dramatic Red Dress

At some point during the Tumblr Era, an unknown woman decided to be photographed from behind in a long red dress against a striking backdrop, setting in motion the most remarkable experiment in collective hypnosis in recent history. Ever since, whenever a woman is spotted in a long red dress in broad daylight anywhere in Italy, you can be mathematically certain she is a tourist.

In advertisements, and in many cases in certain somewhat agé films, the image of a woman in red cutting through a city crowd is almost an atavistic, if banal, symbol of vitality and passion. The archetype is so deeply embedded in culture that even the emoji catalogue includes one depicting a woman in red dancing. The questions this raises are many: do these visitors dress entirely in red back home too? Are they truly ardent passionarias, or is their romanticism purely performative? Why does the idea of a red dress in a Mediterranean country hold such a powerful grip on the collective imagination? Certainly, whoever wears the "dramatic red dress" has an incurably overflowing heart and wants the world to know it. And in the end, they do succeed. But at what cost?

5. The Matching Linen Set

An unwanted offshoot of the Old Money wardrobe described above, the matching linen set is actually not exclusive to tourists — it is also favoured by many young Italian men who, even in the most remote and forgotten provincial towns, refuse to give up the appearance of being part of the 1960s jet set. Lately, however, the coordinated linen set has become a common sight in Italy's tourist cities, where it is worn as a halfway solution between a uniform and a pair of pyjamas, complete with the inevitable white sneakers and, occasionally, a small crossbody bag that aspires to be "fashionable" without quite pulling it off.

Why is this look a mistake? Because it never communicates what the wearer intends it to communicate. Worse still if paired with an entirely impractical men's clutch. Rather than evoking a sophisticated poolside party from the days of the economic boom, the sight of a matching linen set actually calls to mind the little outfits put on toddlers aged one to three when they have to be taken to a summer wedding in the hope that they'll sleep in the pushchair for half the time.