Words by Pat Eggleton
One of the differences a British person will immediately notice when shopping in Italy is that there are many stores where you are not left to “just have a look” , as is our wont, but where the assistants seem to be following you around at very close quarters. This is not because they think you are going to steal something but because they take pride in their work and would feel that they were somehow failing in their duty if they left you alone.
A British woman, used to seeing everything on accessible display in Marks & Spencer, is likely to find a lingerie shop particularly perplexing, for more often than not the goods are kept in drawers behind the counter and the shop owner will bring them out for your inspection one by one. At this point our intrepid British shopper may well be asking herself,
“But how does she know my size?”
For the proprietors of Italian lingerie stores have an uncanny ability to guess your size accurately the moment you cross their threshold and they would be mortified if they got it wrong. I’ve been in Sicily for five years and in that time I have never had to tell a shop assistant my size in any kind of clothing store and the same goes for shoe stores.
In the past year, however, I have noticed that several stores, particularly chains, are diversifying a little and I can now think of two lingerie chains which have started to stock their own cosmetic lines and other clothing. Admittedly, some of the latter is so flimsy that it could easily be taken for lingerie but at least half the store space is now taken up by these lines.
Italy’s small shops are beginning to diversify and five years on, I’m not sure I like it! Has it ever struck you that the Anglo-Saxon genius is for combining the functions of a retail space whilst the Italian genius is for keeping them separate?
When I first settled in Italy I kept walking to large supermarkets because I just wasn’t used to buying foot cream in the pharmacy, CDs in the CD store and baking tins in the small ironmongery stores that proliferate and stock every gadget you could ever need in your kitchen. You still can’t buy over-the-counter medicines or herbal remedies in a supermarket but a law to permit pharmacies to open in supermarkets has been suggested.
And now I would miss the friendly smiles and personal service I get at my local pharmacy: if I forget my health card, it’s no problem; they always remember my difficult surname and find my number.
If I cannot get to the doctor but need a repeat prescription that is no problem either; they let me have it, remember the name of my doctor and I don’t even have to go to him the next day to obtain the prescription – the pharmacist’s assistant does it. Thus I learned another valuable lesson about living in Italy: make friends with your local pharmacist for he or she carries out all sorts of free services such as blood pressure checks, hearing tests, hair analysis and even electrocardiograms and is an excellent source of advice on everyday ailments.
I often enjoy a drink and a pastry in my local “edicolè” bar, one of a chain of these around Italy. Here a bookshop, newsagent’s and bar are combined – normal in the USA and UK but an innovation in Italy - and it works well. The bar is still a totally separate space, though.
Small stationery shops, which also proliferate, are a joy to visit and if you have children, this is where you order their school textbooks and you can even find second hand ones. Again, you may not realise just what treasures your local stationer has hidden in her various drawers and cupboards, so it is worth spending some time in there. Only after a year did I realise that mine stocked computer printing paper – my fault, because it wasn’t on display – and, as I’ve mentioned before, if you need to send a fax or make a photocopy, this is the lady you need. One stationer in Modica even has the patience to find refills for all your variously sized ancient biros, put them in and then test them, even if she has a shop full of customers.
One thing which all Italian stores, large or small, will do for you is to gift wrap any item free of charge. Usually they will ask if you want the “confezione regalo” but sometimes I have forgotten they will do it and have ended up unnecessarily wrapping the parcel myself. Or perhaps the Brit in me does not feel quite right at Christmas if she hasn’t spent at least one night making a terrible mess with sellotape – it ends up everywhere but on the package in question – and I’ll never be able to gift wrap artistically in the way that any Italian shop assistant has been able to since she was three years old.
But then, every part of the sales process is an art form in Italy. The other day I was buying grated cheese for the pasta and some olives in a tiny salumeria: I watched with pleasure as the assistant grated the cheese freshly, then placed the olives first in a plastic container and then sealed that with clingfilm. Whatever problems you initially encounter in shopping in Italy, leaking or inadequate packaging won’t be one of them!
