Winter Florals It's common knowledge that Italian street style is years ahead of North American fashion. So a few years ago when our parents returned from a trip to Italy with a present in hand, we couldn't wait to tear it open and see what fashionable treasure lay inside. Much to our horror, what we found was not (by our North American standards) fashionable at all, but instead, a floral mess. A silk blouse in a floral print? How lame, we thought. How old, we cried. How could you think that we would wear this, we questionned. My mother's defense of "All the girls in Italy are wearing them" was not compelling enough to force us to actually wear the gift. Instead we sulkily handed it over to our sister and wondered how our own mother could be so clueless (Please note, our bratty and ungrateful attitude is not in question here; we now know to accept a gift with grace and gratitude). 4 years later, we're kicking ourselves for treating our mother's gift with such disdain. After seeing the Fall 2008 collections from Michael Kors, Anna Sui, Behnaz Sarafpour, Thakoon and Derek Lam all filled with floral prints in winter's most dominate shades, we realize our mother actually did understand fashion. In fact, she understood it so well, she was years ahead of her daughter! Moral of the story: your mother (and Italian fashionistas) always know best.