To think where you live dominates how you dress?

[lolliwillowes]

Not just the climate/weather, I mean the styles of the locals.
I lived in a really outdoorsy place for a decade, never thought about it much but tended to wear outdoorsy stuff, most of the shops sold it, and to some extent, most others had some semblance of similarity.

Then I moved to an urban area, no weather related stuff at all, most people hardly bothered to wear raincoats or weatherproofs in winter, and sportswear /leisure was the most common style such as basic leggings, jeans and tee, guys in footy garb, etc.

When I visit friends in my closest city it is quite different there too, obviously, but tons of dresses everywhere! Lots more colour and variation.

I also think we now have much longer summer months than we used to, and less rain. This will also affect how we dress too. As a nation we are usually so tied up with 'bad' weather and buying the perfect coat, etc, but maybe this will change from now on. Last summer seemed to last from march to november here!

So we like to think we are original to some extent with what we like to wear, but I strongly suspect where we live has a bigger influence than we are aware of.

@rifling

I'd be interested to know how your style has changed, what do you wear now?

“All black works much better in a City.”
I disagree! It’s grim in winter when two-thirds of the people around you are wearing black coats and almost all of the remainder are grey or navy. Like everyone’s heading to a funeral, even with black woolly hats and dark scarves. If it were up to me I’d offer a tax discount on coloured winter coats as a mental health measure.

All black - always with a splash of colour! But black doesn't work in the country. At all in my opinion.

I would have said more lifestyle, which is obviously very different depending upon urban/rural. In urban areas we don't need sturdy boots etc, people get away with wearing dinky little ballerina flats all day, you couldn't do that in rural places. Because we don't walk as much, and when we do all our pavements are, well, paved, we're indoors a lot more and our jobs are more likely to be sedentary. We're very urban but when we go on holiday (always in the UK, and usually in rural areas) we take better suited clothes/shoes. I don't mean trying to be "country" but ballerina flats aren't going to cut it, really.

I also think we now have much longer summer months than we used to, and less rain

We don’t have a longer summer and still get shit tonnes of rain and cold.

I noticed this moving from North West to Midlands- "bad weather footwear" where I grew up is walking boots. I never really saw anyone in wellies, but everyone wears wellies here. Waterproof coats too- people would wear practical brands in the North- anything from Tresspass/Regatta up to Berghaus and other more expensive ones. Here it's more like Barbour or maybe Seasalt/Joules. Assume it's partly the climate, but also cultural elements too.

Yanbu, i realised the same thing when I moved from one area to another in the same county. It was only a move of about 20 miles but the local styles are so different and of course it influences newcomers like me.

I don't think my city has a style, absolutely anything goes here.

I think the OP must live in London or the home counties.

It never ceases to amaze me that so many posters think the weather is the same throughout the UK.

Today is grey, cold and damp in South Yorkshire.

Huge black duvet coats with bright white trainers around Stratford (East London). Wide-legged trousers and casual tops again with bright white chunky trainers in Central; maybe the odd smart work dress worn by office based lawyers/bankers. And you stand out as obviously from Essex or just off the train from a city Up North if you dress up for a night out 😆
I don't fit into any of the above categories as I tend to dress very suburban Mum style and those are found travelling around zones 2-6.

Where I live is a mixture of Joules, Boden, Seasalt with the odd bit of Sweaty Betty. Everyone seems to have a wardrobe full of Bretton striped tops. Practical but safe dressing.

I have no idea what brands people wear here. They just wear clothes.

@RampantIvy

Im in South Yorkshire too!

Glum damp and cold today.

I have noticed this, too, how in many places I have lived, social background has more to do with dress styles than weather.
I once lived in an ex industrial town where football and other local sports were the only cultural interest, so tracksuits, hoodies, leggings and teeshirts across the board.
Sadly towns devoid of much outside cultural interest are often a product of poverty, but I have to admit not many of these people were struggling in the regular sense, so I do think it was cultural/social rather than just economic.

I once wore a raincoat with the hood up during a downpour in october and a neighbour chuckled at me and called me 'soft in the head' for it. I rarely saw anyone there dressed for winter, only a very light jersey jacket at best. A couple of miles away where I grew up, we wouldn't have been let out as kids without being properly bundled up like eskimo's
Clothing and places is a definite thing, and different social groups do things rather differently.

We are a tiny island with not many variables.

Maybe not quite the extremes between, say Florida and Alaska, but the temperature range can be 30 degrees+ in London in summer and 15 degrees in Scotland.

There are countless posts on here every summer with posters complianing about the heat, and the rest of us are saying "what heat?"

We lived in a village with few pavements. Most people wore jeans/cords and boots. Moved to the suburbs and everyone wears lycra leggings and carries a water bottle to show they are walking for fitness (mainly round a block of no more than two miles).

If it were up to me I’d offer a tax discount on coloured winter coats as a mental health measure.
This is a great idea. I've always just thought ban black coats as combined with black trousers and hoods up they make you almost invisible on winter nights.

Same here. As long as I'm comfortable and warm / cool as necessary, I just wear what I want and don't even notice what other people wear. That applies wherever I am.

Definitely the case here. University city where the young women wear anything and everything. Lots of the older women wear really interesting and stylish outfits, big mad jewellery, loads of toast and oska type outfits. I love the freedom of it, and my wardrobe has got much more eclectic over the years here. But I do notice I stick out when I go ‘home’ to my depressed northern seaside town. What looks chic and effortlessly cool here looks just bonkers up there.

This is an interesting thread ! I was reading something about Victoria Beckham's new range that seems to have been inspired by a similar thing. Apparently she went out in Miami and although she was wearing what was the height of fashion for London or New York, she looked out of place in a place where woman with money dress very differently, with tight fitting clothes, and she felt she looked buried under all the fabric from her outfits. She's also lived in LA so you would expect the clothes to be worn to a super expensive and fashionable restaurant in LA and Miami to be similar, it seems the local style was very different.

interesting...i am flat sitting in Knightsbridge for a few months....flat worth about 2m plus....most people are smartly dressed out and about....went to a local yoga class....most looked quite tatty....lots of battered old gucci loafers, rolex watch....the odd discrete chanel hair grip.....no bags with huge logos etc...all very under stated.....all well off as talk of the country house and schools etc.!

How can you tell whether the loafers were Gucci or the hairgrip was Chanel?

I did find it hard moving down south after growing up in North Cheshire/South Manchester areas, how less dressy evenings are. Its easier and now my wardrobe doesn't contain anywhere near as many impractical hand wash only outfits, and standards are lower, bur I do miss getting glam regularly.

I live by the sea so every other 40-something woman wears a Dryrobe to Waitrose

I have not yet succumbed, but I've not been here long. I expect it's only a matter of time before I find myself swanning around town with ostentatiously damp hair.