La Scala bans flip-flops and shorts in beachwear crackdown at top opera house

8 July 2025, 13:59 | Updated: 8 July 2025, 14:12

The weather in Italy might be heating up, but for operagoers in Milan, that doesn’t mean they can dress down.

Milan’s La Scala theatre has warned punters that they will be banned from entering the site if they arrive wearing beachwear, including shorts, tank tops or flip-flops.

This comes after complaints that some audience members were arriving dressed for the beach, not the opera.

A warning has now been placed on tickets and the opera house’s website and a ‘rules of conduct’ sign now sits at the theatre’s entrance. It asks ticket holders to “choose clothing in keeping with the decorum of the theatre”, and that “spectators wearing tank tops, shorts and flip-flops are not allowed”.

Those who arrive dressed inappropriately in the eyes of the opera house, will not be issued a refund.

Read more: The excruciating moment La Scala booed the great Luciano Pavarotti for cracking a Verdi high note

This dress code was actually introduced in 2015 when Milan hosted the Expo World Fair and La Scala, and existed to stop people turning up to the opera in swimming costumes, but the rule had never been strictly enforced.

This was partly to do with calls for ‘more tolerance’ over attire by La Scala’s former French director, Dominique Meyer. He said he would rather have badly dressed opera fans than empty seats, as he was criticised when he was younger for showing up dressed down at the Paris opera.

Read more: Opera gloves: what’s the history of the fashion items that originated in the 16th century?

But now, as tourism continues to rise in Milan, the opera house has suggested this leads to a “dip in decorum”.

A spokesman for the opera house said: “We don’t want to tell people what to wear, but we do want them to at least wear something.”

“The rules now need to be reinforced, especially due to the heat we’ve been experiencing,” they said. “Some spectators were getting annoyed after seeing others not dress appropriately, for example in flip-flops, especially in a theatre where people are sitting shoulder to shoulder.”

Young people are not deemed to be the problem, however: it is tourists. Visitor numbers hit nine million last year, up from 7.5 million in 2019. An article in the Italian daily La Stampa on Monday said: “The truth is La Scala is infested with tourists who see it as a tourist attraction, take selfies and leave at the first interval.”

La Scala’s spokesman added that there had been a “change in behaviour led by visitors who do not follow opera but see La Scala as a landmark”.

The dress code comes in as part of a broader overhaul on etiquette rules, including the banning of food and drink being brought in and taking photos and filming during a performance.