imaginary outfit: postcards from italy

Notes from two weeks in Italy, March 2026:Venice: A shop crammed with velvet gondolier slippers, tiny glass snails and mushrooms and dachshunds (saw dachshunds everywhere). Old wells around every corner and brass door buzzers that looked like doodled faces. Shops selling turned-wood geometric shapes, convex witches' mirrors, and wool sweaters and skirts of elegant plainness and eye-popping affordability. Fortuny's private library/wonder cabinet, with tiny theatres, cloud projection scrims, and pleated silk gowns. The zine library + fabulously slouchy couches at Fondazione Quarini Stampalia (and the tiny Carlos Scarpa garden with its spiraled water channel). Cornell boxes + dog memorials at Peggy Guggenheim's palazzo. A grocery store in an old, fresco-adorned theater. Vaporettos up and down the canals. Citrus trees.Salami sandwiches and travel Scrabble. Bumping luggage over cobbles. Extraordinarily tiny cars.Florence: A medieval abbey turned into a massive public library with a cafe on…