What Italy Taught Me About Style, Confidence & Starting Again

Elinor Salter
May 6
5 min read

“I didn’t go to Italy to reinvent myself… but that’s exactly what happened.”

When we first moved to Italy, 25 years ago, I didn’t realise that I needed help with my style or my self-confidence. There were lots of factors that made us move out of the UK. Our son was only 4, we had horses and dogs that needed to come with us and we wanted to create a new life, not just an expat life – same values, same routines, etc, just a different place!

Looking back I now realise just how brave I was! We moved everything here. We left behind family and friends. Only I spoke the language and then certainly not fluently. We had to make a home, make friends, buy and complete a house, start new schools, new jobs and navigate the Italian bureaucracy.

All that alone was enough to start my confidence growing, but it was the awakening to the fact that I really liked the person I was in Italy that started to change how I felt.

As you will know if you have been following me for a while, I have always loved clothes and have had a fierce interest in style and fashion from a very young age. But I had let it all go through being a young mum, having horses and an active country lifestyle. I had developed a uniform to fit in with my piers in that world, and had forgotten my own style personality and preferences. I had been playing safe, so as not to stand out and labelled as anything other than country women. I had become stuck in that identity, dressing out of habit – but it wasn’t my identity, I was dressing like that because I felt “I should”.

But after being in Italy a few months, things started to change. I noticed that the Italian women I was meeting didn’t follow any kind of uniform or tribe. They didn’t dress the same as someone else just because they all went sailing together, for instance, or they were all into horse riding or cycling. They didn’t have any dress code other than the code of looking their best – Bella Figura.

The mothers at the school gates were always dressed up, more often than not in clothes I would have worn to a nightclub on a Saturday night when I was younger, but still looking their best. They were fully made up and I never saw anyone one in gym gear.

The ladies I met in the shops, cafes and markets, were the same – always in their best clothes, looking put together and smart, whether it was in jeans and a blazer, or a more classic suit or dress.

I started to take note and carefully watch what they wore and how they wore it. I started to notice the different energy they had. They way they held themselves, they way they walked, the way they interacted with others.

It seemed to me that all this came from the innate knowledge that they were showing the world the best version of themselves and as such were quite happy to meet the world on their level.

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I want to share with you the 4 key lessons I have learned from my years of studying Italian fashion and style on all levels,

Lesson 1: Style is self-respect

There is NOTHING wrong with wanting to look your best. There is also nothing wrong with wanting the best for yourself. If you don’t respect yourself, no-one else will.

This isn’t because other people are mean or judgemental, it means that the image you are projecting is the image that people will see and if that is one of “I don’t care what I look like”, or looking scruffy and unkempt, then that is what people will thing about you unconsciously and that is the image you then have to work had to change with the way you talk, act etc.

If you respect yourself and dress that way, then the battle is already more than half won.

Your image is the first thing that people will notice about you, even without a word being spoken.

Lesson 2: Simplicity is powerful

You don’t need to dress from head to foot in designer clothes to look stylish. In fact, more often than not, if you did that you would have the opposite effect.

Simplicity is very powerful. A simple outfit in beautiful material, whether it be in neutrals, patterns or bright colours, will look quietly elegant and stylish, rather than the loud shouts of designer labels.

Well-fitting clothes, in the best quality you can afford, that blend with your own style personality, will give you an air of confidence that should never be under-estimated.

Lesson 3: You don’t need more — you need better

One of the biggest eyeopeners for me those 20 odd years ago, was the small amount of clothes my Italian friends had in their wardrobes. They didn’t buy tons of cheap, trendy clothes. They bought the best they could afford, in a style that would see them from season to season and wore them as often as they could. If they wanted to follow a trend, they would normally do this with accessories or maybe one piece of clothing that didn’t cost too much.

The greatest compliment you could give them was noticing they had the same outfit on as a previous occasion. If they went to more than one wedding in the summer, they wore the same thing to all of them, knowing they looked their best.

They buy carefully and well, making sure that what they buy is an investment and will go with lots of other things in their wardrobe and will last through countless wears.

Lesson 4: You’re allowed to evolve

Just because you wore a certain style in your 30’s doesn't mean you still have to wear the same style in your 60’s. In fact, it is better not to! You will have changed in attitude, maybe career, maybe in shape, certainly in how you view yourself, so if you are evolving with time, so should your wardrobe.

The Italian women I know and have studied aren’t afraid of change. They embrace their bodily imperfections as they grow older and dress for who they are now, not for who they were.

Starting Again

It is NEVER too late to let go of that old version of yourself and to build a style for the woman you are now. It is NEVER too late to find your self confidence and your self-respect.

We owe it to ourselves to be kind and to think the best of ourselves. Not in an arrogant way, but in a way that commands respect from others and encourages people to treat us well.