What an Italian town’s dress code for tourists reveals about the battle against casual wear | Canada Voices

After years of prioritizing comfort above everything else, our pandemic-era Zoom wardrobes have followed us into public life. These days, it feels as though athleisure is accepted almost everywhere, including at restaurants, transit terminals and even offices.

In the northern Italian town of Varenna, however, officials have decided to draw the line. The village has begun issuing fines to tourists who are inappropriately dressed.

Visitors now face fines of up to €200 for going bare-chested or wearing swimwear outside of beach areas, piers and boat decks. The new rules are aimed at deterring tourists from entering the town’s streets, bars and restaurants without covering up.

In an interview with The Guardian, Mauro Manzoni, the mayor of the Lake Como-area town, defended the new law: “Our residents’ quality of life cannot be sacrificed on the altar of mass tourism.”

Shifting attitudes around holiday and workplace dressing seem to have reignited a societal fixation on the dos and don’ts of getting dressed. Toronto fashion consultant Luigi Carrubba, who works for part of the year in Italy and other areas of Europe, said Varenna’s rules should not be seen as “fascist fashion orders.”

“I do think a lot of North American and British tourists, in particular, have gone too far in terms of how relaxed they are in someone else’s backyard,” he said.

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After years of styling icons such as Diana Ross, Salma Hayek, Linda Evangelista and Shania Twain, Carrubba has witnessed what he describes as a “dramatic decline of common sense when it comes to style” in shared public spaces.

“It’s this plague of Lululemon everywhere except the gym,” he said. He also pointed out that other destinations such as Portofino, a tourist hotspot on the Italian coastline, already have a no-barefoot, no-beachwear policy.

Carrubba argued that covering up is not just a courtesy to locals, but a sign of respect. “A lot of times, you can’t enter a church wearing a crop top or short shorts or anything that a Kardashian is usually wearing because it’s a sacred place. Fashion and dining in Italy is sacred, too. Those designers and those cooks … are serving you their best, so you should look your best.”

British-Australian novelist and poet KM Neale, whose most recent poetry collection is titled Lessons in How to Wear Red, regards the rules as reasonable. Neale’s poems, such as Have Levis, Will Travel, Chanel and Satori in Paris, explore what our internal dress codes reveal about us. Her position is simple: “Honey, if you can afford to stay in Lake Como, you can afford a shirt or a skirt,” she said.

In the United States, dress codes are top of mind in the travel industry. The Transportation Security Administration, which operates at more than 450 airports, issued a public warning to employees that they could be reprimanded for ill-fitting uniforms. This follows last year’s rollout of what the Department of Transportation called a civility campaign: “The Golden Age of Travel Starts with You.” It advocated that travellers dress “with respect” to go to the airport, among other etiquette-related objectives.

In contrast, buttoned-up Tokyo recently launched a campaign promoting a loosening of dress codes. Called “Tokyo Cool Biz,” the city-run incentive encourages public servants to forgo jackets and ties in favour of shorts, T-shirts and sneakers during Japan’s scorching summer.

Although dress codes can carry negative connotations, Véronique Hyland, fashion features director at Elle, said they aren’t just a way to critique – they also regulate etiquette for social occasions. “You wouldn’t wear certain things to a wedding, a funeral or a christening – or, in the case of Europe, a dinner where there are more rituals in life pertaining to dining,” she said.

Yet, as she pointed out in her 2022 book, Dress Code: Unlocking Fashion from the New Look to Millennial Pink, rules on attire can also be linked to misogynistic ideas of dressing, and can “disproportionately impact women and girls.” That’s the case at schools in particular, she said, where skirts are often required to be a certain length, while boys can “wear anything.”

Her book explores how dress codes are often tied to respectability politics, as a way to control women’s bodies by promoting a “hyper-feminine” mandate that always seems to U-turn back to the 1950s.

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At Cannes, for example, Hyland noted there has been a strict dress code in place since 2025 that prohibits certain sheer fabrics. She said the red carpet has moved away from showing too much skin “This year especially, many were channeling old Hollywood on the awards circuit and wearing fifties-style dresses or actual vintage,” she added. “People are generally much more covered up.”

As someone who went to university in Italy in my early 20s, topless beaches were par for the course. Today, there are still countless clothing-optional beaches along every major Italian coastline. However, back in the early 2000s, tourism had not yet reached today’s overcrowded levels – Lake Como had a reported 6.8 million overnight stays last summer – and there was freedom in grabbing an ice cream or fresh pinsa in your speedo or tankini.

That sense of liberation was reflected in fashion, too. Dolce & Gabbana was the label of choice, with its bra tops, hot pants and nearly see-through fabrics.

In short, vacation style wasn’t that heavy. Day or night, my friends and I looked club-ready, and dress codes didn’t dictate our decisions. I’ll still take brazen over boring any day. Whether it’s a crisp linen suit or a string bikini, good taste or bad taste is so much better than no taste.