A pasta-making witch from a beloved 1975 fable is being hailed online as the blueprint for a very specific strain of autumnal coziness.
By the autumnal equinox on Sunday, Danni Capalbo had already had her fall game plan in place for weeks. She would spend the coming months wrapped in cozy layers in her apartment in Boston, stirring up steaming vats of carbohydrates.
Her inspiration for the season is a benevolent witch she met in the hills of Calabria, many years ago: Strega Nona, the title character of a 1975 children’s book of the same name by Tomie dePaola.
“She’s so relatable,” said Ms. Capalbo, 28. “She’s a little Italian witch who makes pasta all the time.”
She first encountered the character in her childhood library. But lately she has been seeing Strega Nona pop up on social media, recast by adults as a patron saint of autumnal nostalgia.
She joined in by posting a tribute to the character that has been viewed more than 300,000 times on TikTok. Other fans have enumerated the signs of a “Strega Nona September,” or joked that they were trading the chaos of “brat summer” for a more wholesome “Strega Nona fall.”
“Strega Nona core is very much my vibe for 2024, being old in spirit and hunched over a pot,” Caroline Goldfarb, a writer and co-founder of a tinned-fish company, said in an interview with Grub Street in January.
@the.reluctant.influencer Inspired by Sydney on The Bear, but ended up looking like Strega Nona. #rotgirlwinter #winterasethetic #pufferscarf #headacarf #winterfashion #winter #streganona #nonna #grandmafashion ♬ Dolce Nonna – Wayne Jones & Amy Hayashi-Jones
Share
Print
