When to shop in Italy

The Galleria, Center of Milan

I wish someone would have told me this information when I first moved here! When I first moved to Milan I was so excited about the shopping! Our apartment is one block away from Corso Buenos Aires (the longest shopping street in Europe), and we are only a few metro stops away from the city center where all of the high end shops are. All of these fun new shops and fashions right at our fingertips! Last year I shopped every now and then, and purchased things randomly. But what no one told me was the best time to shop. Every time we would go down to Serravalle (a designer outlet mall about an hour south of us) it would be almost empty, with the exception of a few tourists. This seemed strange to me because there are great stores- Versace, Dolce & Gabbana, Ferragamo, Valentino, Prada, La Perla, Furla, etc.

Well, as it turns out, twice a year Serravalle is packed with wall to wall people. There are even lines outside of some stores with people waiting to get in!! Every year Italy has their big sales (SALDI!!) in January and July. These are the best times to shop!! And I realized that this is the time that most Italians do their clothes shopping. It's easy to see why when most of the items in stores are marked down anywhere from 20%-75%. And no, it's not just your H&M, Zara or United Colors of Benetton that have sales, all the high end designers do too.

At Ferragamo in Rome with Sofia- we shopped the sales last July
when they visted :)

So, when planning that big trip to the "Land of the Sun" for it's amazing fashion, plan on being here in either January or July to stretch that budget. Certainly not the best times for tourists (January is cold and dreary, while July is HOT and there are tourists everywhere), but the shopping could make it worth your while :)