Italy’s normally salty prices get torn to shreds when sales season comes. From prezzi salati to prezzi stracciati, when prices are shredded, it’s time to go shopping. The country waits on bated breath as the stores mark down and the people line up. It was a Saturday afternoon in February and I was standing transfixed in front of a store by the station. Shopping wimp that I am, normally, I would not have had the guts to go in. The problem was they had hung my skirt in the window. I don’t mean I owned it; I mean it was made for me. Knee-length, black taffeta with a wide bow on the side, I felt an immediate cosmic connection to the skirt even if I had nowhere on the planet to wear it. ‘Do you think I’d have the guts to do housework in it?’ I asked my friend Claudia. ‘Or maybe just having it in my closet would be enough.’
Sighing, my friend pushed me over the shop’s threshold. Claudia has no patience for platonic relationships with clothes. ‘Just buy it, Linda,’ she told me. ‘It’s fifty percent off. On sale, it’s almost affordable. You have to take advantage of sales’ season. Normally, that skirt would cost you un occhio della testa, an eye from your head.’
Hmmm. In Italy, beware. Expensive things cause partial blindness. I squinted at the thought. In a visual society like this one, un occhio della testa is a sacrifice worth thinking twice about.
Claudia scouted out the racks with the eyes of a pro while I weighed the worth of my retinas. It could just be me, but I’m convinced you can tell a lot about a culture by the way it talks about money. After all, money may not make the world go round, but it certainly coaxes people to turn corners quickly. Find out how a country talks about cash and you will discover its system of values.
In English, over-priced products cost ‘an arm and a leg’. English-speakers place value on the extremities; arms that reach for things and legs that reach for places. Interestingly, true worth is placed on the things we need to get us somewhere and grab us something once we get there. In the forward-moving, goal-reaching English-speaking world, it’s only natural that monetary worth adds up to appendages.
In Italy, however, the highest value is placed on the eye. This fact, in and of itself, should surprise no one. It is well-known that Italians are virtually addicted to the visual arts and arguably obsessed with aesthetic beauty. Life in Italy is not a constant chain of events, it is a constant flow of eye-based experiences. Casual visitors to this country, prove this point easily. Their gaze fills with the beauty of Italy’s palaces, paintings, and people, and they roam the streets with what look like newly-opened eyes. Even the most veteran ex-patriots will readily admit that living in Italy implies continual bombardment for all the senses, particularly the eye. In this country, seeing is not only believing, it’s synonymous with breathing.
While I was busy weighing the cultural ramifications of bodily sacrifice and monetary value, Claudia had asked the saleslady to take my skirt off the mannequin. Had I been paying more attention, I would have tried to stop her. A naked mannequin means you’re going to buy whatever she used to be wearing. ‘All things considered, it’s cheap!’ my friend reassured me.
Never go shopping with an Italian during sales’ season. You will come home with clothes you love blindly, but cannot wear. Freed from the shopping spree, taffeta safely tucked in a bag with a brand name, I was struck by a feeling of elation tinged with guilt.
‘Is it right to feel such a cosmic connection to clothes?’ I asked my friend.
‘Is there any other way to feel?’ she smiled.
Right. I forgot. This is Italy.
