clothing to wear in italy

I'm not sure what dress jeans are.

If you don't mind standing out as a tourist, shorts are OK. On our recent trip, the men in our group who wore shorts commented that they did feel out of place at the times when we were surrounded by locals, like when our hotel would recommend a good local restaurant that the tourists don't know about. They would walk in wearing their shorts and look around and all the Italians were in dark slacks. Even the guys who initially said, "I don't care what they think...I'm on vacation," eventually started wearing long pants to dinner in the evening.

In the last year, we have traveled in 3 trips to France and Holland, Italy, and England (all warm weather). I am way far at the "do not care" end of the fashion continuum but watched rather closely after reading these pages. In England the men we saw were either in a suit or in jeans. Ditto everywhere we went. Sneakers too. The only people I saw wearing shorts just about anywhere were small children. We bought fancy Calvin jeans for our trip to London and England last month..we wondered if they were "too dressy" :-) Now we didn't hit any 5* restaurants but were fine everywhere we went.

I saw a lot of jeans on KIDS. Adult men in Italy do not wear jeans. Shorts are NOT OK in larger cities, but fine by the beaches in a resort town.

Jeans are hot. You don't mention when you will travel, but in the middle of summer in Italy, I wouldn't advise wearing them.

My husband travels with a nice pair of "chino" pants, a neutral color that goes with his polo style shirts.

Sneakers....if they are comfortable on your feet for walking, then wear them. My husband travels with sneakers and Chaco sandals with a dark tape that look fine.

We eat out casually, no fancy places for us, so dressier clothing is not needed.

The Italian men in most cases are dressed up. Suitcoats, or a nice sweater over their shoulders. You will see the working guys wearing a multi pocketed vest, but not with jeans.

No, shorts are not okay anytime in Italy. There is a "modest" dress code for churches in Italy. Though some will tell you that it only applies sometimes, to the bigger churches, bottom line is it DOES apply to the churches you will want to see - i.e. St. Peters at the Vatican. You must wear long pants in order to visit and you will be turned away if you are not dressed appropriately - including no tank tops for men or women. Shorts are great for tramping around Pompeii or other ruins, countryside, hikes, beach.

Jeans are hot and heavy it you are traveling in the summer - it will be 90-100 in cities like Rome. My husband wears lightweight long khakis & walking sandals. Also - tip for the heat for shirts is to wear buttoned collared shirts, made of lightweight material. They tend to be cooler than knit polo shirts.

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Wearing shorts in Italy/Europe is partly age-related.

Enjoy.

I just returned, and most of the people I saw worn jeans including men up to their mid 30's. After that it was normally black pants.

Everyone knows you are a tourist no matter what you do. Dress comfortably, take a pair of black or khaki pants to got out to dinner with and you will be fine.

Shorts are uncommon, but I did see a handful of Italians wearing them.

Next time I will take all shorts, and one pair pants for dinners.

-Brett

I have been following the 'how-do Italian-men-dress', 'shorts/no shorts' thread. No where is it mentioned that many European men wear man-capris in the US. Invariably, when I see man with capris on, he is European. Frankly, you can't even find them here to buy; I've tried. Apparently, men wear them there. Me? I am athletic 60-yr. old, wear shorts as much as I can, and plan to wear them there. I AM planning to pick-up a couple pr. of man-capris while I'm in Italy!

I would never wear shorts in Italy, unless I was at the beach. And yes, lots of men wear man-capris. If you are comfortable with them, wear them. Otherwise, go with linen pants, khakis, or jeans (if it's not too hot).

Additionally, I don't recall many (if any) Italian women wearing shorts.

"I don't recall many (if any) Italian women wearing shorts."

Yeah, but there are all those older ladies in dresses revealing stocky legs a high school football player would die for. :-)

I have an edit to my last post after thinking about it for a few minutes. I was in Italy for a month, from about June 20 to July 20 a couple years ago. For the first couple weeks, when temps were in the 80s, I didn't see any Italians wearing shorts. When temps got into the 90s, I saw them wearing shorts randomly, but not many of them. What I really saw a lot of when it got into the 90s were capris (men and women) and linen pants. Both of which are practically as cool and comfortable shorts, and you'll fit in better. Plus you won't have to worry about not getting into a church or getting weird looks in just about any restaurants.