MY SEASONAL CHECKLIST FOR FALL

My essential list for the change of season

I love autumn, with its warm colours, the desire to relight the fireplace, candlelight and weekends in the countryside. In all this I find the best way to embrace and enjoy this season. I want to share with you my essential daily routines that I follow at this wonderful time of year to help me move slowly into winter.

1 - Get inspired by nature

In autumn, as in every season, I love to change my surroundings, from the scents to the fabrics in the house, from my looks to the flavours.

Adapting the colours and essences of my home by taking inspiration from nature I think is one of my favourite things to do during the year. I even change my phone backgrounds, looking for inspiration on the beautiful seasonal images I find on Pinterest.

The transition between the summer and winter period for me must take place slowly.

Within this time of the year, the shorter days and cooler climate invite you to spend more time indoors. So what better time to devote to changing the home decor? Personally, I don't make big changes... I arrange objects more or less every year in the same way: in the period between September and October I like to put some small pumpkins on knick-knacks and I change the colours of my bed covers, using warmer shades.

As the days pass, I add heavy fabrics such as blankets and curtains to the rooms, starting to favour warm, rich colours for the carpets.

2 - Change of season in clothes

The season begins to change and nature warns us in many ways: the air is now crisp in the mornings and the sky, which no longer has its August clarity, is stained with white or grey clouds.

For years now, unfortunately, the mid-seasons have become extremely short. The transition from hot to cold has become more rigid and less blurred than some time ago and this basically means a change of season literally overnight!

I usually take a quiet day like Sunday to put away all my summer clothes and pull out my beloved jumpers, boots and scarves. Being a time of year with unstable and changeable weather, raincoats play a key role in autumn. This is the time of sudden rains and cold weather ready to bite us for the first time after months of torrential heat.

The colours I like to wear follow the changing nature at this time: I love brown, rust, dark grey, cream, but also a Prince of Wales pattern (I often wear trousers in this style in autumn) and plain neutral cardigans or jumpers.

In the first weeks of September, it will be necessary to adopt an 'onion' style (i.e. layering) because the weather will be so unstable in its rush towards cold weather, that we will experience continuous temperature swings! I always wear a light sweater or t-shirt in neutral colours and over a light beige cotton blazer (a colour that always goes well with almost anything), which I will then replace over the weeks with a heavier one, perhaps made of wool.

Long trousers may be light and ruffle-style at the beginning of the season (I love military green or navy blue ones), as well as skirts, but I know that in a short time they will have to be replaced by black skinny jeans (a stable point in my wardrobe) or by heavier fabric trousers (I love my JBrand velvet navy trousers and my Stella McCartney vegan black leather pants).

As for accessories, I tend to introduce a bucket hat first to protect my head from rainy or windy days, and gradually reintroduce scarves (my favourite is the The Classic Check scarf from Burberry with its classic striped pattern that my grandmother Anna gave me) and my felt hats with feathers from Zadig and Voltaire (one brown and one black). The wool beanie can wait until late October/November to be reintroduced into the wardrobe.

3 - MY AUTUMN table

Darker evenings and the desire to honour nourishment with enveloping flavours again change the ingredients in my kitchen. My autumn recipes feature the vegetables and raw materials that this season has to offer us, such as black cabbage, pumpkin, porcini mushrooms, beetroot, broccoli, chestnuts (for my beloved tagliatelle) oranges, apples, pears, pomegranate and cinnamon, one of the great protagonists of this season!

These seasonal ingredients are perfect paired together: red salads with nuts and apples, Pumpkin with mushrooms, potato gnocchi with chestnut flour, apples with cinnamon, honey with mature cheeses, meat with red wine (September is harvest time in Tuscany).

My table for autumn takes inspiration from the warm tones of this season and focuses on the beauty of simplicity. In this time of the year, my favourite colours to use are rust, caramel, antique pink and cream. For the mis en place, I like to play with the contrasts between the colours of the table, of the tablecloths (or of the runners) and the harmony created by the glasses, jugs and candles (which for me must be colourful as well.) Everything must have a warm hue, like a hug.

To adorn the vases, I collect dry branches during my walks in the countryside and if I am lucky, I can find branches with red berries and golden leaves that will give an impeccable autumn touch to the dining room and are also perfect, if shaped and arranged carefully, as table centrepieces.

4 - UPDATE YOUR FRAGRANCES AND YOUR SENSES

Seasonal scents are an easy mood-booster, both in terms of fragrances to wear and aromas in the home. My favourite candles of this period have an ambery and enveloping scent, but, why not, also musky! Besides the aroma of firewood and autumn cooking, I love invading the air of rooms with amber Dyptique scents, such as Baies and Yankee Candle's Warm Cashmere candle.

As personal fragrances, in autumn I love to wear Gypsy Water by Byredo and Eau des Merveilles by Hermès, the two fragrances I have been fond of for so many years!

And what about you? What are your autumn rituals? Let me know about them!