In Vacanza: Dreamy photos of an idyllic Italian summer

When you imagine an Italian summer, the tranquil, sun-drenched style of Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me By Your Name might spring to mind. An unflinching portrayal of queer love in the heat of Lombardy’s countryside, the film explores the heady romance between its two protagonists, Elio and Oliver, captured in the director’s signature immersive style. This aesthetic is echoed in the work of Italy-born and London-based Giovanni Rombaldoni, whose sun-drenched project In Vacanza – which translates to “on holiday” in Italian – documents a dreamy summer escape with his friends to Torre del Greco, a coastal town located on the Bay of Naples.

In February last year, the bleak British weather inspired Rombaldoni to search for a holiday in southern Italy. “I just wanted a beautiful and historic location,” he tells Dazed. “I cherish the past and the history of places.” He stumbled across an apartment owned by a ceramic artist called ‘The Volcano Lover’, which he describes as “heaven on earth” for both its aesthetic and location – Torre del Greco is known as the gateway to the Amalfi coast, and sits on the southwestern foot of Mount Vesuvius. Inside, the interior looks like it’s shedding skin; the walls are cracking, the rocks are decaying and the wallpaper is peeling. But this only adds to the charm. “It looks so decadent and rustic, almost falling down but in the best way possible – high ceilings, linen bed sheets, a view overlooking Capri,” he says. 

At the same time, Rombaldoni became friends with models Aurelio and Molly, who he’d initially met on a test shoot in 2022. He was introduced to their friend Noor later that year. “I remember telling them about the apartment I had booked and how great it would be if we all went together and took some pictures there,” he adds. “I jokingly called it the Models’ Bootcamp, which became the name of the group chat.”

The project evolved organically across four days last summer. The models were photographed in Sorrento for the sunset, at a hidden beach called Bagni Regina Giovanna, and in the sweltering sun of Pompei. A sense of nostalgia underlies the pictures, the golden glow of the evenings reminiscent of the supreme feeling you get after a day spent at the beach. Hints of lazy mornings and afternoons spent sunbathing are evident in shots of un-made beds, leftover juice bottles from breakfast and towels hanging on the washing line, while objects from the homeowner’s life are peppered throughout the apartment like clues to a scavenger hunt. “The details I shot of the home function as a tie between the past and present moments of a domestic space,” says Rombaldoni. “The house itself, characterised by a feeling of decadence and decay, had endless corners of artefacts from the past, which allowed me to hone in on my passion for ceramics and antiques.” 

With In Vacanza, Rombaldoni aims to evoke the feeling of ‘dolce vita’, or the ‘sweet life’. He pairs modelish portraiture with more spontaneous imagery, inspired by Italian film directors like Pier Paolo Pasolini, Federico Fellini and Luchino Visconti, as well as photographers like Charles H. Traub, Luigi Ghirri, Claude Nori and Brett Lloyd. “Growing up in a coastal town myself [Pesaro], I definitely look at Italian summers through rose-tinted glasses,” he explains. “The dreamlike tones of my pictures carry a sense of nostalgia of the classic ‘dolce far niente’ [sweet doing nothing] that shaped the Augusts of my youth.”

Since this trip, the Models Bootcamp has grown from a group of four to six, and the project has reached Essaouira, Morocco, where his friend has a house. Tangier or Marrakech might be on the cards later this year, as well as the Caribbean in February after receiving a free flight voucher. “The romantic narrative portrayed in my photos derives from our lust for travel and experiences that we get out of our trips,” says Rombaldoni. “My main goal is for people to feel what I felt in these moments. I want them to read the emotions of the scenery and portraits, and connect with the pure bliss of being young and ‘In Vacanza’.”