The thermometer in Milan still reads like July. So what's actually changing?
On a walk through Brera last week, I passed four women in real coats — buttoned, some belted, worn like it was already October.
Ask an Italian woman when fall starts and she won't check a forecast. It starts the week the coats come back out, whatever the thermometer says.
The coat that comes back first isn't the heavy one. It's lighter, worn open as often as closed — and this year it isn't the beige gabardine everyone pictures.
Ours skips the gabardine too — a soft corduroy trench from our source in Bologna, cut midi-length in black or navy, dressed-up and lived-in at once.
See the coat before the season catches up.