What To Wear To A Wedding In Milan ~ Your Best Shoes.
The run up to the wedding was everything I love in life. Excitement, glamour, traveling somewhere new, meeting lovely people, but mostly planning what to wear. It was almost exclusively all I thought about for months and as the day of departure arrived, it became exquisitely intense.
Vintage 80’s bride’s hat.
I had gone through every wardrobe, storage box and suitcase in the house, trying on all my best vintage gear, but nothing seemed right so I rode into town for fresh fashion inspiration. Well, now I know why the high street is dying. Everything on the rails in every shop was a size 6, 8 or 10 and we are all really fat. England is the fattest country in Europe and the shops are stuffed with tiny clothes. Who should I mention it to?
Anyway, I had tried asking my lovely Prisca, the bride, for guidance on the dress code for a Milan fashion wedding at El Duomo, but all I had was “Don’t worry, Betty”, and confirmation that “colour” was fine. I imagine she was quite busy. Right, I’m now fixated on colour. My biggest problem however is I’ve reached an age that I could unintentionally go wandering into the dangerous territory of having a ‘mother of the bride’ situation going on if I’m not careful, but I don’t want to over compensate and go all out ‘Ironic Patty Smith’, so I turn to the Internet for information. Idiot.
Forty minutes later I’m filled with the fear from a hundred Millennial’s travel blogs ... ‘if you are not wearing Prada you’ll be run out of town, don’t dare ask for a coffee or you’ll be publicly vilified for crimes against the state and wear your best shoes even though they still won’t be good enough’. Idiots.
Three Yves saint Laurent Yeti feather boots in Milan - one for each leg.
As the time passes my outfit-anxiety rises, so I message an old telly friend, who now makes fashion films, for help. She’s beautiful and fabulous and she’ll definitely know what to wear in Milan. She is still beautiful and fabulous, but informs me that the last time she was in Milan Versace was still alive, however she categorically confirmed everyone wore black, all the time, to everything, everywhere. With good shoes. Even to weddings I ask? Especially to weddings she answered. She said she wouldn't be surprised if the bride turned up in a tuxedo.
Oh Jesus, so in spite of just having invested weeks of time, buckets of energy and piles of money in committing to the only clue I had; “colour”, I turn up at Bergamo airport dressed like Joe Pesci in Goodfellas. This apparently wasn’t necessary, however it did make the snoozing elderly baker jump to his feet when I walked into his patisserie the other side of my journey. I was expecting a general frostiness or at best indifference from everyone when I arrived, however I could not have been more wrong. Perhaps I’m too used to abusive English people, but the warmth and generosity from everyone I met in Milan filled me with the feels.
Peplum, Pink, Floral and Flouncy dresses.
I always forget those feels and how the separation of just a couple of hours flight from your homeland can deliver you into a totally different environment. I had left my house at 7.30 that morning for a late afternoon flight from Manchester and not one single second of that journey to the airport could be described as anything other than harrowing. Which, by the way, is completely normal for England. In fact it’s mandatory.
I locked up the house and walked, Joe Pesci style in skinny black jeans, a man’s white vintage pleated-front tuxedo shirt with open wing collar and a black Damsel In A Dress three quarter dress coat with a flying kick vent at the back, my best tan cuban heels and my trusty leopard-print cabin bag to firstly vote against the government in a local election, then get the bus to town to then get the train to the airport. The bus used to go past the railway station, but one day it didn’t and never did again, so in spite of several petitions and public demand for the bus to go back past the railway station again, we just feel lucky that a bus turns up at all. It’s a very short, but extremely long journey into town, and an even more tedious hike to the railway station once you reach the bus terminus. Even the word ‘terminus’ makes me fear for my life.
I had booked my train ticket in advance and left at least five hours to get there, as it’s a one hour journey. Of course we all just sat on the airport train as the departure time came and went. No one batted an eyelid, so I asked a woman doing her make up if she knew what was going on and she sighed out an accepting answer that “there aren’t any drivers”. There were plenty passengers though, and since I’ve emerged from my time capsule it has become normal now to have your phone on speaker as if you’re at home. Mothers playing children’s tv programmes, wankers banging out techno, and worst of all people talking to people on speakerphone about absolutely fuck all, so you have to listen to bloody BOTH SIDES of their tedious conversation now.
I made it loud and clear that I didn’t realise that that was a thing now to the young and pleasant conductor when he finally came round to deliver the inevitable news that the airport train wasn’t going to the airport and we’d have to change. Instead of five hours to spare I made it there half an hour late, so sprinted the normally 10 mile 30 minute jog from the trains to security. An English woman watched me run for the lift and tried to close the doors on me before I got there, so I made sure I ruined her route to check in by any on-the-hoof means possible. I stopped when I felt I had balanced the scales of karmic justice for both of us, and when check-in staff told me I’d followed her to the wrong place, I still felt I’d taught her a lesson. Winner.
I had packed, measured and weighed every single thing in my bags. I do this firstly because I am inherently law abiding, and secondly I just want to get through the horror that is UK airport security without feeling violated and traumatised.
This of course just never, ever happens. I don’t know if they don’t like grown women who travel unaccompanied by an adult, or if they don’t trust the vintage Sicilian mobster look, but I got a double sit down search and my suitcase dissected. Here we go, those magic words: “There’s something in here we need to look at”. Me: “Is it the pink crystal butter knives?” Him: “No, it’s these.” Me “Oh, the monkeys”. In my mind I’m raging that they’ll let murderers and paedophiles stream though without a sideways glance, but two gormless men in badly fitting uniforms and not a CSE between them are allowed to tear apart my wedding present and slowly pull out all my underwear in-front of a pack of strangers while I’m standing being jostled by the mob, undone and shoeless. I absolutely object and can not see the need when not a single other country does this. If every country did this, fine, but they don’t, no other country does this, so how can this be necessary? It’s not. We’re told it’s for our own good, in case of you know what. It’s not.
Best shoes and cat socks for Milan.
Anyway, I retrieved my monkeys with knives, best shoes, private possessions, but not the shampoo, because “this has to go in the bin” as there’s about 50ml of shampoo left in it, but the bottle holds 150ml, so in the bin it goes, and fight my way through a football match size pack of drunk rowdy stags and squirrel myself away in the sanctuary Of The Nook cafe. I find a nook in The Nook and decompress with a pastry and a cup of tea.
Not one sip in, there’s an old couple with the old woman on speaker phone to her old friend at home. Oh no she isn't. I turn my battered and manhandled self round and give her the Goodfella’s death stare. And deathstare I stare for another whole eleven minutes until at last even they can’t think of any more meaningless drivel to not hear each other say. At last, peace and pastry and it doesn’t taste like stale greasy paper. A heavily made up and facially enhanced Italian lady sits down across from me. She is extremely well groomed and continental. We exchange a smile. At last, can this start now please?
