Which are the famous shopping streets in Rome?
Made in Italy is well-known worldwide.
Italian people are famous for their style and their creativity in realising clothes. Gucci, Prada, Valentino, Dolce&Gabbana are some of the Italian fashion labels and there are many others. Tourists come to Italy for different reasons, but they all have a weakness for Italian clothes and no one can’t refrain from buying shoes, sunglasses or simply a T-shirt.
Italian fashion is so attractive that in the main Italian cities there are places called ‘vie dello shopping‘ (i.e. shopping streets), where to spend a lot of time entering and coming out of shops. You will be spoilt for choice of how many shops you can choose from.
Also in Rome it is possible to walk along the shopping streets admiring the shop windows one close to an other or, why not, buying haute couture clothes and accessories.
The main street is Via Condotti. This street begins from Piazza di Spagna in front of the Trinità dei Monti stairs. About 300 meters of clothes, bags, jewels and much more. A place where dreams come true! This street is part of an area called ‘Trident’ together with the parallel streets of Via Borgognona and Via Frattina. At the end of the most famous shopping street in Rome turning to the right you are in Largo Goldoni: here Fendi decided to open its main shop in Palazzo Fendi… 7 floors of fashion!
Via Condotti is not the only one in Rome.
Among the famous shopping streets in Rome you will find Via del Babuino leading you in Piazza del Popolo, Piazza di Spagna as well has its own haute couture shops. This area was preferred by people like Goethe, Byron and Shelley.
Via Margutta is another street you can’t miss for its little artisans’ shop. Just few minutes walk from Piazza di Spagna, but it looks like to be anywhere else, far away from the chaos of Rome. At the end of 1700 many artists, painters, antiquarians settled in Via Margutta, transforming this street in a bohemian spot.
Do you prefer vintage clothes than haute couture?
You have to move to Rione Monti in Via del Boschetto. You are just 10 minutes walk from Via dei Fori imperiali. Along that street you can come across little shops with vintage clothes and accessories. On Sundays it is set up a street market where you can find this kind of clothes at a bargain price.
If you are tired of too much shopping, you can get some rest in one of the oldest cafes in Rome: Antico Caffè Greco in via Condotti, 86. It is a 18th-century cafe, where Keats and Byron used to drink their coffee at the marble tables. On the entrance you can read ‘A.D. 1760’, but maybe the cafe already existed before that year. At that time cafes were the places of intellectuals, artists, Enlightenment philosophers and so on. You can find one in every most important Italian cities opened during 18th century, for example in Padua or in Naples.
All the year round Rome offers a variety of events dedicated to Italian fashion and it is preferred as a main location for renowned Italian stylists. For example in 2007 Valentino organised an exhibition of about 300 dresses and other various objects for the 45th year of his activity. In 2013 Palazzo della Civiltà del Lavoro has hosted the ‘Armaniday’, a big fashion show with collections presented in Paris.
