How to have a London Girl Summer
A style proposition AND a high street shopping list, where everything costs less than a hundred quid apart from two things
I could do that Thing where I go “Unpopular Opinion!” then come up with an idea so meh it barely qualifies as an opinion. let alone, unpopular… But I shan’t.
Instead, I shall Make A Pronouncement.
London girls - London women - are better at summer dressing, than French women.
Shut up - we are.
I write this as a person literally incapable of not clicking any link, any link at all, which promises to help me dress more French. I do this even though I know that’s a nonsense proposition (no Brit can ever learn to dress truly French, certainly not in the time it takes them to read a two hundred words on low heel lace thru ballet pumps), also that it didn’t work when I clicked on any of the last three hundred links which promised the same thing - and last but by no means least, that it’s possibly racist.
Still. I love the idea I will one day, despite it all, DMF, Dress More French.
Except in summer. Because it’s true! Londoners do summer with more wit, art, silliness and flair; buoyed along by us having no fear of ugly shoes and side boob, or sports socks, or fingers, loaded with signet rings.
In my capacity as a cool person (I am, don’t even argue) who constantly street-style-stalks anyone who's doing anything even vaguely interesting with their own outfits, I recently spent an afternoon in between appointments, perusing a London high street (the King’s Road, since you ask) tracking down examples of the individual concepts which will make your London Girl Summer work.
And here they are! (Affiliates info, a possibility on anything marked **).
Jelly Shoes
They’re too weird, too silly, too 80s retro, too girlie and too, too ridic to NOT work. Juju Jellies in pale pink**, £26 Schuh.
Trinny London Trinity in Mustique** £36
SPF, mussed-up hair, and a lick of one end or the other of this wondrous new product to your eyes, lips and cheeks, and OOOOOOH! So fresh, so not-even-trying, so almost nothing at all!
Perfect straight leg jeans which aren’t even offensively expensive which is what gives them added authenticity
Lee Rider Relaxed Straight Leg Jeans, £88**. The brilliant Jess Carter Morley of The Guardian put me onto these, she is rarely (never) wrong. They’re like: if summer made its own pair of jeans.
Coming up: 2025’s update on the waistcoat, the three best sundress vibes of all time, a £55 Khaite dupe, EXCELLENT sunglasses for £39 and MORE.
