Signorina in Sheffield
Of naked women and the principles of constitution
So here I am, an Italian gal in the land of Shakespeare. My name is Marta, I’m from Turin (North West. Yes guys, Juventus) and I am a post grad student at Sheffield University.
I arrived in England mid-September. Very surprisingly and very out of stereotypes, the thing that shocked me the most so far has definitely been the cold.
I should articulate this better: I actually come from a pretty cold place for Italian standards, so it’s not tragic. But every time I put my nose out of the door, I still have to pass through a clothing ceremony: wool socks, wool tights (above the wool socks), thick jeans, undershirt, shirt, sweater, jacket, grandma’s hand made scarf, gloves. Basically, my idea of bringing Italian fashion to the North is Bib the Michelin Man (which is French, by the way).
What really strikes me is not the temperature anyway. It’s when I go out at night, dragging my body under layers and layers of heavy material, and I get passed by a herd of girls in high heels (high heels while drunk should be awarded. Seriously. It must be as requiring as an Olympic discipline in terms of coaching).
They wear nothing but dresses as tiny as coasters and I have actually to stop and stare at them in my most astonished look. How do they do that? I ask myself while trying to adjust the scarf so that it covers my nose better. If I went out dressed like that, I’d die of pneumonia in less than a month.
Now, to tell the truth, I must confess that every single Italian I ever met, from whatever gender, experience or background has noticed this English habit and made some funny jokes about it.
A friend of mine from Turin who spent 6 months in Leicester confessed me that for the first two months it was a feast for his eyes, but after that he started to only notice the girls who were dressed with the amount of material to make a tie, but that would’ve needed a balloon to actually cover up.
“Cellulite is not a medal for valour” he commented with the typical modern Italian gentleman’s aplomb.
He might have a point, and it might be considered bad taste. But the real question is: is it actually freedom, or is it the ultimate consequence of being a fashion victim?
There are two reflections that make me definitely go with the first hypothesis, whether these girls think about it while trying to fit a size 16 into a size 6.
Firstly, it’s good to acknowledge the freak is Giselle Bunsen and not you. Secondly, a girl in Italy could never get away dressed like that, whether sexy skinny of fat. Not in winter, hardly in summer. Men (not all men of course, but a good number of them, past beyond scums) would consider themselves allowed to yell, swizzle, call her in any possible way.
In effect, even more than bikini girls in the middle of freezing cold, what really surprises me are men that keep talking, drinking and caring for their own business while these girls pass by.
I’m not reducing gender problems to dressing policy of course, but it’s indicative that they don’t feel allowed to make any public remarks on the way women dress, no matter how gaudy.
In Italy a woman can dress like that only to appear on tv, where cameras and eyes are meant to be all over her body. There is no having fun, no light thinking in dressing like that.
Nakedness can be a lack of good taste in England, but in Italy it’s a job, a well paid one. One of our show girls was even appointed Minister for Equal Opportunities.
With boobs like those, many analysts commented, it was no wonder.
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