To want to Dress like Londoners

[TheSuze]

I have found myself getting more and more frumpy since i moved out 18 years ago. Whenever I visit the capital everyone including people of my age (mid 40s) looks sleek, expensive and classy in style.

Aibu to want to dress like Londoners, Parisians and New Yorkers.

I went to our city's big out of town shopping centre the other day (in the north) for the first time in ages.

One thing that struck me was how so many people were wearing ripped jeans, how many tattoos people had and how many people seemed very 'dressed up' despite the ripped jeans and tattoos (I think there was also hair styling, noticeable shoes and bags, fuck off great caterpiller brows, that sort of thing).

A colleague's DS got a 'big job' in London and she used to constantly boast about how important the job was and how he had to wear certain types of suits and get his shirts from certain places.

Agree that every day Londoners are probably thinner than the average population and probably walk a lot more than people who travel more by car or bus. I go about once or twice a year and despite being used to walking a lot, I can really feel it at the end of the day, you must walk miles getting on and off the tube.

I want to dress like London people
I want to do whatever London people do

Sing along, it might just get you through

Looking like a Londoner
Be thin
Have toned legs and thin ankles
Flats not heels eg footwear you can run in
Think layers
No baggy t-shirts

A typical going to toddler group / park outfit was denim skirt, boots or converse, vest top, fitted long sleeved t-shirt then light weight jacket, scarf. Always leather gloves in winter coordinating (not matching ) bag.

I'm walking to work along the South Bank and looking at people's clothes. I'd say it's about half office wear, half gym kit with a few people in jeans.

And now I'm looking, most of the dressed-for-work women are in skirts or dresses. But nearly all of them (including me) are in trainers.

London people are on average much younger = thinner. I was whip thin when I lived in London.

Mind you, me Ma still lives there and she styles it out in Bon Marche and JD Williams. Maybe you could try that? They're very reasonable according to the old dear.

Violetta I think you have a very good point here

If you think you might see 200+ people every day before you've even got to work, that's a lot of data to put into the next time you get dressed or go clothes shopping.

It also works for people visiting, When you visit London you see SO MANY people - so even if 10% of them are dressed in a way that makes you take notice, that's a lot of stylish people you've just seen.

I know what you mean OP...grew up in Surrey/london suburbs spent years working in London now I live on the South coast and do a lot of frumpy dresses from fat face which look weird when I go. I feel like I dressed more edgily and more varied when I lived/worked there...o f course sometimes I got it wrong pvc skirt and Kat Slater style t shirt for office job

I know what you mean OP. In London mums at the playground just look cooler than mums in the provinces.

What does it matter really. I actually despair over how some women feel about themselves, makes me sad. Whether I'm dressed up or in my old gaming t.shirt and jeans I'm the same person.

Marking place to come back to....

Posting from London to tell the OP that most women here wear the same skinny jeans/Converse/Breton top uniform that everyone else wears!

I live in London, and I'm a right scruffy mare. And I'm fat! Perhaps I should move

I also think that it might simply be that because you're seeing a lot more people at once, you're seeing a lot more 'stylish' people at once, so you're noticing them more?