Posted by cynthia on Friday, May 19, 2017 in 2017 Blog post.

Cefalu is full of little local businesses- cheese shops, bread shops, souvenir stands, and even soap shops!  I love looking at the clothes boutiques, but the style of clothes found there did not seem like clothes you would wear on a regular basis.  There were sunhats draped with seashells, long, lacey, pastel dresses, and be-dazzled t-shirts.  These clothes were pricey too.  “There is no way locals buy their clothes here,” I thought.  But Cefalu is so small- where else would they buy their clothes?  Do they purchase via online shopping or do they go into a bigger nearby city, like Palermo, to shop?

One day, I was looking for a stationery store in the backstreets of Cefalu when I walked by this bright window display.  I looked in the door and it was the biggest store (besides the grocery store) that I had seen in Cefalu so far.  I went in and realized that it was basically an Italian version Forever21.

PHOTO: Store Front

The clothes were much more affordable, and I saw that many more people were shopping here as opposed to the tourists browsing the small boutiques in the center of town.

PHOTO: Sales

PHOTO: People Shopping

The clothes were also more modern and trendy- Piaza Italia carried clothes for men, women, and children.  They had 5 euro basic colored shirts, 20 euro jeans, 15 euro blouses, and cheap jewelry.  From the racks, I could get a sense of Italian style in comparison to American style clothing.  The clothing here seemed more simple (making it look more professional/sophisticated).  A lot of the clothes targeted towards teens and young adults looked like what was popular in America a couple of months ago.  For example, they had chokers, pastel colors, these weird unitard suits, and a lot of high-neck crop tops.  It’s as if Italy follows a couple of months behind America in popular fashion trends.

PHOTO: Batman Tee

On thing I found really interesting was the use of English and the obsession of New York City on some of the clothes.  Why do Sicilians want to have New York on their clothes?  Is this a trend in other countries?  I have a feeling it is, but I don’t know why.

PHOTO: New York

The writing on this shirt made me laugh a lot, because it really doesn’t make any sense.  Yet, I am sure there are some Sicilian youths out there wearing this shirt and thinking that it is super cool.  This reminds me of the shirts that some Americans wear: shirts that have Japanese or Chinese characters that probably say something nonsense or inappropriate.  I might just have to go back and buy this shirt sometime.

PHOTO: Shirt with English?

What I learned from this experience was this: fast fashion exists in Sicily, just as it does in America although on a much smaller scale.  The trends are similar, though they seem to happen at different times.  Lastly, people are fascinated with foreign languages and fashion brands will cater to that… though most of them will probably not do enough research.

PHOTO: More English Clothes?