Why there is a lot to learn from the Italian grandmother lifestyle

Lately, the internet has become obsessed with ‘nonnamaxxing’. My Italian grandmother just called it life

As an Italian living abroad, I can understand the recent internet obsession with Italian grandmas. The viral “nonnamaxxing” trend touts slow living as the secret to longevity and dough-rolling nonnas have proved a hit on the Pasta Grannies YouTube channel. Recently, the idea of the sciura, a well-to-do Milanese older lady, has also gained traction among luxury brands, while the wildly popular @sciuraglam Instagram account features glamorous dames having the time of their lives.

Nonne definitely know how to live well. In Milan, sciureknow how to dress well too. My own grandma, an original sciura, definitely knew both.

Recently, I thought of what she would say about my comfort-first wardrobe. She’d probably wonder where my generation’s taste for dressing down comes from, given her entire life was spent dressing up — herself, her daughters and her grandchildren. 

She had an ingrained sense of style best described as Milanese refinement with a twist: a mixture of quality garments and branded statement pieces, such as her ubiquitous Louis Vuitton bags and Hermès foulards, spiced up by a calculated flamboyant touch, or a leopard-print silk shirt and omnipresent brillocchi, chunky gold jewellery encrusted with gems. I remember her platinum-gold bob, blow-dried once weekly and seemingly unmovable, her python-skinned heels, and the huge fur coats she wore in winter. Dressed to the nines even to pick my sister and myself up from school, her clothing signalled her material comfort without being tacky.

But her carefully studied image was as far as possible from her origins: she was the first of four children of a poor family living on Milan’s outskirts. Her mum was a seamstress who struggled to support the family after her communist dad lost his factory job in fascist-ruled Italy.

Born in 1934, she was evacuated to nearby Brianza 10 years later to live in a convent with her younger siblings and was there when Allied forces raided the city. They were so hungry that when they found toothpaste in packages from Allied supply drops, they slathered it on toast and ate it — with predictable bellyaching results.

After the war she started working as a secretary in an architectural firm. There was a whole country to rebuild and money from the Marshall Plan to do it. Milan in the 1950s must have looked like endless possibilities; my grandmother was ready to seize them.

One night, she decided she wanted to go to the firm’s ball, but she had nothing to wear. Her mum refused to help her — the firm is where she had met my grandpa, a courtship initially opposed by my great-grandparents because he was 17 years older than her.

But Grandma was undeterred: she bought some dark green shantung silk with her savings, made herself a dress with a full, round skirt, switched her wooden clogs for her Sunday best and took the tram to the city. She was 18. Her strong-mindedness and independence were, for a woman of that day and age, something to behold. Not for nothing did we use to call her “General”.

In the 1950s, my grandpa and his siblings patented a type of window to ensure ventilation in industrial settings, which proved to be a good business. My grandma could now sew everything she wanted. In her newfound comfort as a housewife, she stopped working but kept her Singer sewing machine singing.

Her wardrobe was inspired by a desire to look like a million dollars with limited means and emulated movie stars Monica Vitti and Sophia Loren, whose voluminous hair and distinctively 1960s silhouettes she wore.

But her creativity didn’t stop at copying clothes (which she often did, including a beautiful black silk dress modelled on Chanel that I still wear on special occasions). She could make anything from a sketch or a simple request. She would make me dresses to order, often with short deadlines (“But Grandma! I need it for this weekend!”), until at some point she said, “Enough, you need to learn how to do your own.” She sat me at the Singer in her marble-top kitchen and gave me the three commandments: there’s no way back from cutting; hand-stitch everything first; and better loose than tight, you can always tuck it in.

I have never mastered the art, but one time she helped me make a Twiggy-inspired A-line dress in blue velvet with a very short hemline. I loved that dress so much I cried when I could no longer fit into it.

But most of my memories with her are in plain home clothes and an apron, often busy making gnocchi or rabbit, two of my favourite dishes. During the many summer months we spent at her countryside home, she dropped the classy Milanese act, donned coloured aprons and open-toe sandals, and taught us country girl games, making dolls out of poppy blossoms, weaving cane leaves to make a tent, or “painting” our nails red with geranium petals. She could be the typical Italian nonna dispensing wisdom and carbohydrates, as well as the elegant city-dwelling sciura. Despite being widowed quite young, nothing was beyond her skills and confidence — well, except for driving, which she refused to do, despite having a licence.

Proponents of “nonnamaxxing” say that adopting the lifestyle habits of Italian grandmothers will help improve your health and mental wellbeing. But what about dressing like one? To channel my inner Nonna, who died over a decade ago, I have kept a sleeveless number she made in a floral Sixties print, daring colours and mother-of-pearl buttons running up the tight neckline. To me, it is quintessentially her, reflecting the simple elegance and joyful courage with which she stitched her life together