Just like the French can’t actually call something ‘cheap’ (just au bon marche, or a good deal), Italians lack both a word for – and the concept of – ‘trendy’ (they use the English, and add lashings of extra rolled r).

Sure, there’s not a better-dressed nation on earth, France be damned, but Italians aren’t cutting edge-label whores. Rather, they’re downright dapper in that preppy, just-parked-my-Aston-Martin kind of way.

Mostly, that’s because they’re obsessed with details, and stores

dedicated to a single accessory like ties or scarves still thrive here; but it’s the all-glove emporia that are the real find. Every city has at least one or two closet-sized shacks that sell nothing but hand-made gloves – men’s, women’s, brown, black, candy colored, lined with cashmere, elbow length – in traditional, numbered sizing (non of that ill-fitting small/medium/large rubbish). The best place in Florence, despite its icky, tourist-trapping location abutting the Ponte Vecchio, is Madova, where the gloves are made in a factory behind the store.

They’re sold here for bargain prices (around 22 euros for a bright

colored, unlined women’s pair, or 50 euros for snuggle-soft cashmere

lined men’s driving gloves) – far less than the designer labels like

Burberry and Neiman Marcus for which they also produce gloves. Even

better, if you buy the wrong size at Madova HQ, just mail ‘em back with a note and they’ll swap the pair over, no questions asked.

Madova, via Guicciardini 1r, Oltrarno +39 055 239 6526

— Mark Ellwood