Ciao Autunno or How Autumn Killed the Summer Dress.

About two weeks ago the temperature in Turin plummeted. I shut and locked my large glass window for the first time since the start of summer and I haven't opened it since. Already its exterior is coated in a thin layer of dust from nearby construction, filtering what little sunlight that manages to make it through the clouds and reducing my room to a constant state of winter gloom.

Two days later, I pulled out my trusty suitcase, opened my closet doors and proceeded to pack away my summer dresses, one by one. The cotton white number with crocheted trimmings that kept me cool in the intense Thai humidity, the red and white polka-dotted sundress that I changed into in the handicapped stall of Nice Côte d'Azur Airport after staining my favorite knee-length dress when leaving the United Arab Emirates. My heart had atrophied by the time I rehung the hangars so that they swung naked and lonely in the hollowness of my closet. If there was one way to personify the end of summer and the quickly approaching winter, this was it.

Hello Autumn.