Rome. October, 1980

Oh, for the pre-Euro days when a dollar went so much further than it does now. No wonder I spent every other year in the 1980s on an Italian vacation. My first with my friend Dali, who had lived and worked there years earlier so she knew the scene, the protocol, the madness. Seen here, a “fashion photo op” (clue: sunglasses at night) outside the Giorgio Armani store on the Via del Babuino (Baboon Street!) not far from the Spanish Steps, not far from Truman Capote’s apartment in the Via Marguta (also the location of Eddie Albert’s flat in Roman Holiday.) I returned to the same Armani store in 1984 when the dollar was even stronger, and entered this time, buying a beautiful pair of pants that I still have for something like $60. Also a stylish if difficult rubber-and-leather belt. Though my favorite “Armani” accessory is a Western-style cowboy belt that I got for about a dollar from some counterfeiter on the street near the Campo de’ Fiori. These black-market entrepreneurs offer their fakes (i falsi) of sunglasses, handbags, gloves, belts, etc., and somehow, for me at least, the inauthenticity is part of the appeal. I love that on the buckle, instead of GA, it reads CA. Mi piace molto.