As a teenager, Sharon Nannini loved sneaking into her older sister Meredith’s clothes closet.

“She was a seamstress and she made beautiful things,” the 75-year-old remembered. “I used to borrow them all the time and put them back before she got home.”

When she got older she modelled for the old Trimingham’s department store in Hamilton.

“I was working for them, and when they had events in the store I would model,” she said.

Today, she indulges her love of fashion by importing and selling clothes from Sweden, Italy, France and Portugal, on a small scale.

“I have been doing this since about 2009,” Mrs Nannini said.

To show off the clothes, she usually organises two or three fashion shows a year.

Her most recent event was a fundraiser for the Bermuda National Trust held at the Verdmont Museum on Verdmont Lane, Smith’s, earlier this month.

“I like to give back to the community,” she said.

Some of the people at the event had never been to Verdmont before.

“It is really one of the jewels in the Bermuda National Trust’s crown,” Ms Nannini said. Everything went really well although she normally does her shows earlier in the year.

“This weather is crazy,” she said. “It is way too warm right now but I have a few clients who travel, so I bring in one or two jackets and sweaters. Corduroys are in, and women are loving them.”

She always uses a variety of women in different shapes, sizes and ethnicities, to model her clothes.

“Some of them have never modelled before at all,” Mrs Nannini said. “That allows women in the audience to really see themselves in the clothes.”

She does not have a shop and is not interested in getting one.

“This is a hobby and my passion,” Mrs Nannini said. ”My greatest joy is seeing the changes in women. Often, women will tell you, ‘oh no, I can’t wear that’. But when they put it on, they can’t stop looking at themselves in the mirror. They say, ‘well, hmm, yeah’. Or, they buy something they are not completely sure of, and then call me from the supermarket and say, ‘you won’t believe it, but I had three compliments this morning’.”

She has found that many women in Bermuda do not like to see other people on the street wearing their outfit, so she tends to bring in only two or three of each style.

“But I also include that extra large woman because a lot of times she is forgotten,” Mrs Nannini said. “I don’t sell plus sizes, but I do carry loose fitting clothing so that all sizes of women can get into them.”

One of the challenges of her hobby is buying for people with different tastes from her own. For another perspective she often turns to her daughter Chiara, or her nieces, for their opinion.

“I never trained as a buyer,” she said.

But she considers all the compliments she and her clients get as evidence that she must be doing something right.

“I had a client who moved to the Cayman Islands, recently,” Mrs Nannini said. “She called me to say that she is getting compliments down there. People want to know where she gets her outfits, but she is not telling. She wants to keep it to herself.”

Her husband, Fosco Nannini came to Bermuda from Siena in Tuscany, Italy, in the late 1960s to work as a waiter at the Hamilton Princess and Beach Club. He went on to run a series of restaurants in Bermuda such as Il Palio in Sandys, Pasta Basta in Hamilton and most recently Nannini Haagen-Dazs Ice Cream in Dockyard.

“He is now retired,” Mrs Nannini said. “But he still runs a small import business bringing in items like pasta from Italy. Often I bring in my clothing through his import business, or through DHL.”

The couple met years ago when Mr Nannini worked at the Waterlot Inn in Southampton.

They married and had two children, Chiara and Lorne. When the children were nine and six, Mrs Nannini took them to Italy.

“My husband continued to work in Bermuda, while we lived with his parents for two years,” she said. “We wanted them to learn the language.”

But fitting into the community was not easy, at first. Mrs Nannini was the talk of her children’s roller-skating class.

“The Italian women would be in the corner debating who I was and what I was doing there,” she said.

And the Italian mothers were incredulous when Mrs Nannini said she was there so her children could learn Italian.

“They thought Italian would be too difficult for my children to learn,” Mrs Nannini said.

They were wrong. Immersed in an Italian school, the children picked up the language within a few months.

“The trouble is, about as fast as they pick it up, they forget it,” she said. “So I would take them back to Italy ever summer, and I would try to read to them in Italian.”

When her children got older they told her the language immersion was one of the best things she ever did for them.

Now the Nannini couple go back to Tuscany every summer.

“It is beautiful,” Mrs Nannini said. “I go on a lot of walks. There is a castle not too far from us. They have a lot of trails and you can walk all over the countryside. One moment, you can walk into a field of sunflowers, and the next field is poppies. Then you slip and find yourself rolling in lavender.”

It gives her a chance to indulge her other love, art.

“I love to paint,” she said. “But I don’t really like to paint outdoors. I will take a photo and then do some acrylics, or pastels. I have taken some art classes with artist Sharon Muhammad.”

She also loves spending time with her three granddaughters.

• Lifestyle profiles the island’s senior citizens each week. Contact Jessie Moniz Hardy on 278-0150 or jmhardy@royalgazette.com with the full name and contact details and the reason you are suggesting them