Hot Child In The City
Summer dressing in the city, and some book, TV and podcast recommendations.
Greetings Spendthrifts!
First off, apologies for my longer than planned absence from your inboxes (although paid subscribers please note I paused billing during that period, so you weren’t charged for the months I took off 😉).
I decided to skip a few newsletters over the summer to allow myself to focus on some work I’ve been putting on the backburner all year - I’ve finally accepted that there are certain kinds of writing (specifically, longform) that I’m terrible at dipping in and out of. I find being pulled out of that ‘deep focus’ headspace to work on or write about other things just doesn’t work for me - so unfortunately this newsletter had to take the hit!
But I’m back now - and extremely ready to talk about clothes! Dying for it in fact.
I’ve also decided to add an occasional culture roundup to this newsletter to give myself somewhere to talk about the non-fashion things I’m enjoying, so paid subscribers - you can look forward to a roundup of 8 of the best books, TV shows and podcasts I’ve been consuming this summer at the end of this month’s newsletter.
Also coming up:
My thoughts on why I find dressing for summer in the city so hard.
An overview of the best new purchases I’ve made over the past few months, as well as my favourite looks from recent (and planned) trips to warmer climes.
My current shopping wishlist.
I have to confess that another reason for my newsletter hiatus is that... I just wasn’t feeling that inspired by clothes! (I’d also never use this newsletter to push clothes just for the sake of it). I find it really hard to shop and dress for London summers - the majority of brands and fashion media tend to bet big on that whole ditsy florals/milkmaid dress/broderie anglaise vibe, and while that works for a lot of people, it’s just not very ‘me’. Those sorts of outfits make me feel like I’m cosplaying some countryside Cotswolds fantasy, when the reality of my day-to-day in London involves dodging weirdos on the 68 bus and banging my fists against the door of my recently shuttered local M&S foodhall (sorry that’s a massive tangent but I’m still quite upset about it).
Figuring out what to wear if your tastes lie outside of that super-femme framework can be a real challenge - take wedding guest outfits for instance. A dear friend got married in June, and despite said wedding having been in the diary for, ooh maybe a year, I of course found myself in a blind panic trawling the Internet for something to wear just days beforehand (God forbid I wear something I already own, right?). None of the dresses I came across seemed particularly cool or - importantly - particularly rewearable, and I deeply resent spending money on clothes I suspect I’ll only wear a few times. More and more I try to avoid buying the kind of ‘wedding guest outfit’ I know I won’t be able to wear in less formal contexts.
In the end the Internet failed me, and I ended up borrowing a gorgeous baby blue Pleats Please by Issey Miyake set (shout out to PRs who treat emails unironically containing the phrase “fashion emergency!!!” with the seriousness they rightly deserve). I wore it with an old Rejina Pyo bag and some new gold mesh heels by footwear newcomer Izie (who I have to commend on how comfortable their shoes are - I was walking around in these for 14+ hours and felt absolutely fine).
Given how ubiquitous it now is, I’d sort of forgotten just how insanely chic Pleats Please pieces look in the flesh, not to mention being super comfortable - it’s such a good summer option, and I intend to add more of it to my wardrobe ASAP.
I also got some warm weather inspiration courtesy of this lovely little shoot/interview feature I took part in as part of a Net A Porter trip to Greece at the start of the summer - I’ve already added the Silverlake jeans to my wardrobe and worn them loads, and have my eye on the Christopher Esber top as well (just as soon as I figure out which colour to go for - I really love the white version as well).
But I digress! Dressing for holidays and formal events is still IMO much easier than deciding what to wear running around town day in, day out. Usually I end up waiting for the solution to magically unveil itself to me and “biding my time”, until suddenly it’s late August and I start having my head turned by ‘new in’ fall items. (Perhaps unsurprisingly given I live in a country where summer is more concept than solid fact, I feel much more at home dressing for cold weather).
All of that to say: I haven’t really replenished my summer wardrobe for a good few years now - but motivated by a few upcoming holidays, I finally bit the bullet last month and added some great new pieces to my wardrobe that I think (hope) I’ll be able to wear summer after summer, both abroad and at home. A bonus of sending this issue out in high summer is that a couple of those pieces are actually already on sale, and I imagine others will go on sale soon too.
So! If you’ve been feeling the lack of options this summer, here’s what’s worked for me.
SUMMER IN THE CITY
