Last week in New York brought home a shocking and sobering truth: those skimpy little dresses, spindly little straps, knee-high gladiator sandal-shoot-boot-thingies and bronzed bodies that one sees endlessly splayed across magazines aren’t just a catwalk and Sex and the City fantasy.
They are an actual dress code in some pretty seriously urbanised areas. I mean, obviously I knew they got proper summers, with sun and all that, in places like St Tropez or Buenos Aires. But now I know they get proper summers with sun in some major, north of the Equator cities. And it’s prompted a bit of soul-searching.
Because, to be honest, until last week I never really understood why designers produced quite such extensive summer collections with floaty, skimpy bits of chiffon in them, when all you really need, as any Brit knows, is a cunning repertoire of coats in varying weights. I assumed that everyone who bought these wisps was either of hardy, chilblain-resistant stock, or a WAG.
But now I’ve had this revelation about New York summers, which, so my friends there smugly tell me, commence dazzling, like clockwork, on Memorial Day in May and last, pretty much uninterrupted, until September 15, and it makes our own deluded attempts to join in the frantic buying of summery-type stuff all the more senseless and a little pathetic. We just don’t have the weather for it, and now I know that other places do and that the denizens of these places actually enjoy wearing these skimpy, summery pieces, I’m convinced we’d all feel happier (and look less like New York wannabes) if we accepted the fact that no amount of global warming is going to turn us into Nice and adopted a wardrobe actually designed for our climate, as opposed to somewhere else’s.
Admittedly, a gorgeous summer dress is hard to resist, but perhaps you only need one or two as opposed to four or five. And perhaps one of those two should be the kind that works well over a pair of trousers (Gap’s Liberty-print shirt dresses, around £40, are just the trick). And perhaps, instead of zillions of shoestring strap vests, it might be more chic to invest in some nicely cut, cap-sleeved cotton blouses. In fact, wouldn’t it be more chic altogether to leave such vests to those for whom they were originally intended – athletes, children, teenagers and construction workers?
Other shifts in our weather-wardrobe acclimatisation should include a batch of thin, long-sleeved T-shirts for layering under T-shirts and all those summer dresses from previous years, and a jacket, instead of just relying on it always being warm enough not to need a jacket. Amazingly, white is very useful, almost if not more so than black, especially if you’re wearing dark bottoms but want to lighten your look. If you buy linen or cotton, you should be able to pop it in a 30C wash.
They are an actual dress code in some pretty seriously urbanised areas. I mean, obviously I knew they got proper summers, with sun and all that, in places like St Tropez or Buenos Aires. But now I know they get proper summers with sun in some major, north of the Equator cities. And it’s prompted a bit of soul-searching.
Because, to be honest, until last week I never really understood why designers produced quite such extensive summer collections with floaty, skimpy bits of chiffon in them, when all you really need, as any Brit knows, is a cunning repertoire of coats in varying weights. I assumed that everyone who bought these wisps was either of hardy, chilblain-resistant stock, or a WAG.
But now I’ve had this revelation about New York summers, which, so my friends there smugly tell me, commence dazzling, like clockwork, on Memorial Day in May and last, pretty much uninterrupted, until September 15, and it makes our own deluded attempts to join in the frantic buying of summery-type stuff all the more senseless and a little pathetic. We just don’t have the weather for it, and now I know that other places do and that the denizens of these places actually enjoy wearing these skimpy, summery pieces, I’m convinced we’d all feel happier (and look less like New York wannabes) if we accepted the fact that no amount of global warming is going to turn us into Nice and adopted a wardrobe actually designed for our climate, as opposed to somewhere else’s.
Admittedly, a gorgeous summer dress is hard to resist, but perhaps you only need one or two as opposed to four or five. And perhaps one of those two should be the kind that works well over a pair of trousers (Gap’s Liberty-print shirt dresses, around £40, are just the trick). And perhaps, instead of zillions of shoestring strap vests, it might be more chic to invest in some nicely cut, cap-sleeved cotton blouses. In fact, wouldn’t it be more chic altogether to leave such vests to those for whom they were originally intended – athletes, children, teenagers and construction workers?
Other shifts in our weather-wardrobe acclimatisation should include a batch of thin, long-sleeved T-shirts for layering under T-shirts and all those summer dresses from previous years, and a jacket, instead of just relying on it always being warm enough not to need a jacket. Amazingly, white is very useful, almost if not more so than black, especially if you’re wearing dark bottoms but want to lighten your look. If you buy linen or cotton, you should be able to pop it in a 30C wash.
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