Arezzo, 30 December 2025 – Lower the shutter in a month. And with the last turn of the key in the lock an era ends. Forty years with shop windows on the main shopping street: that Corso that generations of Arezzo people have crossed back and forth for a walk, hunting for new loves or deals in the most glamorous shops. A symbolic place that the Polci family has seen changes over time, a transformation in the comings and goings of businesses that leave and others that arrive. Annamaria Polci grew up in the family shop “I breathed the beautiful climate of the golden years and I learned the trade within these walls”. Still in Corso Italia, albeit with some relocations of shop windows.
Annamaria Polci grew up in the family shop which will close at the end of January
“We are experiencing an epochal change in the retail market”
On January 31st a circle closes: “I decided to interrupt the business that my family has set up since the Seventies, because tiredness linked to the pace of work took over and made me reflect but the awareness of a epochal change in the trade marketespecially in the clothing sector.”
For her “it is not a passing crisis but something deeper, structural, which signals a paradigmatic change in consumption and consumers”. He identifies its significance in the transformation of customer tastes and habits: “People have other priorities, they prefer to travel, experience conviviality at a restaurant, go on holiday. And retail, especially in our sector, takes a back seat. We give up an item of clothing for other choices, or we opt for a faster type of clothing at affordable prices.”
“Neighborhood shops crushed by big chains”
The reference is to “large chains which have changed the commercial structure of the traditional shops in the historic center, and all to the detriment of neighborhood businesses which are too small to compete with the giants of international brands. Yet they remain the backbone of Arezzo trade”. Not everything is lost, even if a good part of what was is kept in the album of the families of the city’s historic traders. Like the Polci family, but Annamaria reiterates: “We have adapted to the advent of online commerce: today many of us have a double sales channel, which is very important. And yet the plus of traditional shops lies in the quality of the products, the seriousness of the service, the fact of accompanying the customer in the choices with competence and personalized advice”. In the album of memories, he keeps faces, moments, episodes, anecdotes. But above all he remembers the “feeling” that “had been created with Capuano, coach of Arezzo. He often came to the shop and with the team’s players. A nice person, I have good memories of those golden years.” Rmemories of yesterday and today: “Many customers are sorry for a decision that I myself made reluctantly but there is no going back now.”
Another shop closing
Same choice as Stefania for her clothing shop a stone’s throw from the Pieve, in the upper part of the Corso. Eight years of activity, shared from 2021 with his daughter Giulia. Then the decision to close and change direction.
“Mum no longer felt like continuing due to the intense pace of work for most of the week. Her passion is contact with people, she did it in her shop for many years and continues to do it in the new business”, says Giulia. The end is just the beginning for her who at 58 had the courage to get back into the game. “Today she works ten meters above her shop, in a place specializing in gastronomy. She is an enterprising woman, nothing or anyone scares her.”
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