Sundays are for champagne and friends

Sitting in a bar in Nizza Monferrato on a Sunday night is very different, I believe, to any other night of the week. I’d heard that Piemonte had “quiet money” but the quiet money certainly seems to come out to play on Sundays. Here at our regular haunt it appears to be awash with the smell of expensive perfumes and aftershaves, and more designer labels than you can shake a grissini at. It’s 17:30 and the bar is full on this warm May evening and the patrons are drinking magnums of Cristal and Krug (and notably nothing local) with seafood platters filling their table and cigar smoke filling the air.

I’m assuming the Sunday crowd here has arrived after large family lunches or long weekends away. The men greet each other with manly hugs and kisses as is the custom, and the women - relegated as if by unconscious action to one end of the table - congratulate themselves with the show of new handbags and the taking of selfies.

Fashion appears to take on a curious character for those over 50 in Italy's comfortable, middle-class circles: at least tonight anyway. At the neighboring table, a group of friends exude an air of affluence—it's clear they have money. Leopard print has never gone out of fashion it seems but that said, the women appear meticulously styled, as if they spent the entire afternoon perfecting their looks and are painted for the Gods. In contrast, the men seem to have thrown on their Sunday uniform of overly-snug white jeans, leather moccasins and a formal shirt a decade too small for them. A younger crowd arrives for a birthday gathering inside the bar, and all the boys have the requisite cut-off trousers, designer trainers, tight T-shirts and the bodies to fit them, and immaculate hair. If this was 2007, this could have been a boy band arriving for an autograph signing.

Adding to the sense of occasion of the evening, top of the range Porsches and Mercedes AMGs drive past, with the drivers tooting horns to friends at the bar. They park Illegally and join their crowd with big hugs and more puffs of cigar smoke.

In contrast, behind me is a table of two parents with two children in casual clothes, just enjoying the evening. A couple of glasses of wine, aperitivo and soft drinks for the kids is all that is needed to ensure the family gathers for a Sunday night out.

The passeiggiata is in full swing as I sit here on my second Negroni. Families young and old in the car-free streets saunter up and down, greeting friends and family as they go. It’s an age-old tradition still part of the fabric of Italian life and the reason why family, friends and relationships are, at least temporarily, above the demon of social media and screen time.

I sit at the bar in old jeans, an un-ironed shirt and trainers which I really must throw away, and I’m reminded that Italy still is the king of presentation and appearance at even the most unlikely of times: a Sunday evening.