Have you ever seen Joan Didion’s packing list? Enabling her to pack ‘without thinking’ it was as tightly edited and precise as her command of language. Published in 1979’s essay collection The White Album, it includes two skirts, two jerseys or leotards, one pullover sweater, two pairs of shoes, stockings, bra, nightgown, robe, slippers and, well, that’s it for the clothes (although cigarettes and bourbon do make the wider list). As a reporter she was, she writes, courting the ‘deliberate anonymity of costume’.

I’ll tell you who has definitely not seen the list: the Kardashians. Or, as we should now perhaps call them, la famiglia Kardashian.

As disinterested in packing lightly as they are anonymity, en masse in Portofino this weekend for Kourtney’s wedding to Travis Barker they promptly turned the chichi fishing village into their own personal step and repeat board; an aspirational, curated Instagram feed brought to life.

For the Kardashians, clothes are a performance, not a practicality; it’s about a whole look not a hero piece. The logical progression then in Portofino meant leaning into the Italian ‘theme’ with gusto and all the subtlety of Jared Leto’s Dolmio puppet impression in House of Gucci. It meant doubling down on Catholic iconography (veils and crosses and the Virgin Mary) mixed with Anita Ekberg’s La Dolce Vita corsetry and black lace. For them all it meant, exclusively, Dolce & Gabbana. It also meant gelato.

Perhaps it was a bit literal, but isn’t it what we all, to some extent, do on holiday? Isn’t your precious annual leave supposed to be about escapism? Isn’t the planning all part of the fun?

IRL, you might regularly engage with only the teeniest sliver of your wardrobe, but when the Out of Office is on you can go wild and try out a different persona. Might you be the sort of person who wears kaftans? Will you suddenly feel at ease in short shorts? Could you finally live out your fantasy of being Italian? Possibly. Maybe. Perhaps. This is the one time of year you need not be shackled by what is sensible. Let the overpacking commence.

Laura

Image: Instagram @kyliejenner