If Monty Don was a woman....

[WeirdArchitecture]

Where would he shop?

I really want some lovely cotton or linen stuff, in my mind I see a loose fitting linen jumpsuit with scrappy straps and a side zip. It wouldn't be 'fashion' or ridiculously wide or show a silly amount of side boob. Simple and not humongous.

I search everywhere and can never find what im after, I can't be fussed with trends, but want some more choice. I used to like toast but they fit me horribly and the colour palettes don't suit me.

Are there any shops I don't know about that can do me a Monty style wardrobe? Natural fabrics that could see me gardening or walking by the lake, etc...

MayIDestroyYou I used to have beautiful bright silk stockings from Liberty but the company that made them disappeared.
I also far prefer Winter dressing on the whole, it is easier to be glamorous in Winter and I don’t like hot or humid weather.
For gardening I am always in lots of layers plus a hat. Layers get peeled on and off as the temperature shifts. I don’t wear skirts or anything too wafty as insects are then a problem. I once had a bumblebee fly up some wide leg trousers, and I found a tick on me last year after gardening so I am tick aware now, and I wear narrower trousers or tie them in at the ankle, or tuck them into boots. I like my Danish wool lined wellies as no cold feet.
I don’t have any lawn, only lots of plants, so gardening is mainly endless weeding , with deadheading and pruning, alongside planting things and sowing seeds.

Non gardener, I'm only here for the clothes. So many great links on this thread so I thought I'd better contribute and also ask if anyone's bought or seen anything from Lemuel MC? It's a question, not an endorsement. I found them on Buy Me Once

I'm also a winter dresser by preference although I get through the summer by having a bit of a uniform. For Harris Tweed (albeit usually in men's sizes) I recommend Weigh n' Pay sales when they return. I know you can find it on Ebay too but, when it's second hand, I still prefer to see and feel it first.

I need a proper robust wide brimmed straw hat, big enough to shade the back of my neck, i can never find one because i have a head that is large man sized apparently. I could wear a Panama but not really my style neither are Australian stockman hats (although they are practical). I'm gingery and can't last long in the sun without copious factor fifty but it's a pain if you just want to pop out into the garden for a quick potter (and then inevitably stay out for longer).
I have Danish wellies too, lucky sale find.
I'm off to the Cairngorms today it'll be Goretex and boots all round but I'm definitely planning a wardrobe overhaul when i get back.

H&M have hats in three sizes. I have an average head by measurement, but I hate snug hats, they give me horrible headaches, so I always buy a large, or I unpick the inner petersham band and stretch the hat with my hands.

@Floisme

Non gardener, I'm only here for the clothes. So many great links on this thread so I thought I'd better contribute and also ask if anyone's bought or seen anything from Lemuel MC? It's a question, not an endorsement. I found them on Buy Me Once

I'm also a winter dresser by preference although I get through the summer by having a bit of a uniform. For Harris Tweed (albeit usually in men's sizes) I recommend Weigh n' Pay sales when they return. I know you can find it on Ebay too but, when it's second hand, I still prefer to see and feel it first.

I am similar, most of what I own is for a winter wardrobe, with just a few old dresses that I cycle through on repeat each summer. I am very much a wonder person at heart.

I also can't get to grips with shopping online. I have done it, on and off, since the beginning, but much prefer, like you say, to see and feel what I am about to try on or purchase. It seems like such a long winded arsery to take.a gamble, pay up front, try on then send returns back. Someone may argue that this has less environmental impact than parking up in a city centre once s month, but I don't know...

winter not wonder.

I tried on a wide brimmed hat in a garden centre some years back. It was lovely but I didn't buy it. I think about it every summer

I like online shopping. I prefer the near global choices it offers, and if I want something very specific, because I love how it looks, I won't bother to look for a local copy. And if it means a four week wait, I will wait quite patiently until said articles arrrives.

Although sending it back is usually nightmarish.

I absolutely adore shopping online for clothes.

XingMing's global choice is probably the main reason for this. (Though my impatience with my fellow MN posters' absolute refusal to acknowledge the existence of a world beyond the now defunct High St has made me more and more unpopular here.)

I've had half a century of dedicated and intense experience with concrete clothes shops. A huge portion of my life has been spent browsing, trying-on, comparing - from the sale rails at Top Shop to champagne in the bigger-than-my-bedroom changing rooms at Wardrobe, three packs of underwear at Primark to afternoons at Rigby & Peller, supermarket wellies to an embarrassing early career Ferragamo Vara obsession. My biggest regrets in life surround clothes either abandoned (a long red Dries Van Noten skirt with a bustle at the back) or impossible (a straw-coloured - and textured - dress tried on at Celine, for which I would happily have sold a non-visible body part.) There's no fabric I haven't felt, no saleswoman's patter I haven't learned to ignore. I've swooped on the £15 and under rails at HN at my thinnest, and come away with armfuls of size 8s, and learned how to dress a temporarily medication induced weight gain. There honestly isn't anything I still need to know about the in-store shopping experience.

So I can shop with confidence from my phone, and utterly embrace the 2am experience. I cannot imagine going back to only choosing clothes from the place I'm physically inhabiting. It is still possible to make mistakes - of course - but that's part of the thrill of the thing.

I get what you're saying MayIDestroyYou and Xing but nah. It's partly practicalities - I'm still not great at judging quality in real life, let alone onscreen, plus I can't afford to send for enough sizes and colours to make a properly informed choice. I end up thinking 'that'll do' when it won't actually do at all.

But I also just find real life shopping more pleasurable. Some of my earliest memories are of getting the bus to the shops in town with my mum, and feeling excited without really knowing why, so maybe there's something primal going on but the online experience just feels a bit bloodless. It's like the difference between watching sport on TV instead of going to a real live game - you'll probably see a higher standard of play but there's a whole dimension missing.

But I'm going to have to adjust because there's no high street left round here now.

It's so odd, isn't it, how people's preferences diverge? I'm not sure that after 10 years old (Chelsea Girl!) I found clothes shopping in the rather drab towns I grew up in terribly satisfying - but once I got to London ... And for much of my life I have felt almost as much at home in shops as actually at home.

But now, recently, let's say the past decade, shops have become less and less attractive. In the major city I live close to now, only Selfridges offers a reliably enjoyable experience. And all my best buys come from TK Maxx Gold Label. But I'm far more likely to buy something from, say, Zara or & Other Stories online than in their stores, where the preponderance of crap obscures the treasures.

(You'll have seen me say on other threads that it really does help if one can discern the quality of fabric even on a tiny screen, under a duvet, half asleep! Colours are more problematic. I've just bought a dress for someone else that's arrived several shades darker than the photos suggested.)

Came for the Monty Don chat. Stayed for the wonderfully articulate way @MayIDestroyYou writes about clothes and shopping

Screen colours are a problem I agree. Certain shades more than others. I have bought some red fabric that looked the perfect tomato and is more lurid in real life. I think I will have to dye it to soften the colour.
I also hate the way so many places make buying easy but returning a nightmare. I have a small pile of boxes here of things to put on ebay that I never managed to return.
Many of the etsy shops that make linen garments send out a little shade card with small fabric samples, which I like.
Brexit has made buying outside Britain much harder. I want to buy dd a dress from a European brand as a surprise for doing well in her exams, but they have a hefty minimum spend if you are in the UK, plus shipping and duty, and then the issues with returns.

@Peach1886 I've just accidentally acquired a linen dress from the Linen Person. Oh dear. Well I'll have to wear it for gardening. I'm now off to source a willow trug.

I also hate the way so many places make buying easy but returning a nightmare.
Yes - looking at you Uniqlo and your print-your-own-returns-form. (Our printer is dying.) There's just something about the trip to the Hermes drop-off that I find really dispiriting but, as I say, I know I'm going to have to adjust as the local high street hasn't been good for long time and is now totally shot - it's probably easier to buy drugs there than decent clothes.

ha ha @MsAnnFrope I can see how that happened, it's the sort of shop where accidents do happen...hope you find the perfect trug

I really get what you are saying with the colours on screen. I have a particular issue with Seasalt. I’ve returned quite a few things to them because the colour just hasn’t been what I’ve thought.

Me too! Thank you op for starting this, some fantastic items on so many lovely sites, shame most of the dresses would swamp me.....

I’ve got another recommendation. This company is more lagenlook type stuff, but they do some really nice linen pieces as well as nice trousers and jumpsuits etc. I’ve bought a few things and they’ve been great for the price.

www.laundryb.com/

I have had two dresses arrive from the Toast sale. Both going back . I like Toast but they seem unable to cut for anyone above a C cup. Also all the dresses are high waisted on me. I am taller than average but not really tall. I love the fabric of both dresses but I think I look frumpy in them. I wondered about keeping one and cutting it in half, so I have a skirt and a top but it seems a bit risky.
I really want a new frock !

sondeflor.com/ Lots of linen options here although some more fitted than Monty would wear I think.

I'm sort of in the middle here, in that I am very fortunate to live close to a very naice small market town that still has a very decent everyday high street, by which I mean there's a small Boots store and Superdrug, Crew Clothing, Fat Face and some regional chains. Plus 10 or so charity shops, and a very selective designer resale shop. The big supermarkets have small branches around the perimeter of town. So I shop in the smaller shops where the shop owner decides what to buy and buys with customers in mind. The three I think of visiting are very different: one buys for mainly professional women's lives, so it's quite subdued in colour and shape. Another buys for joyful accents and the gorgeous T shirt you want, and the third is in some ways the most interesting and eclectic, in that she sells clothes to older ladies -- for events, there's lace and colour, but also nicely cut elastic waistbands and colourful items to cheer up the black and navy trousers that you wear all the time. But there is no big time shopping; it's straightforward retail for the local market that is just a tiny bit more expensive than M&S or Debenhams. Except for the posh frock shop, which regularly gives newcomers price - sticker -shock. I love the mix, and still wear everything I have ever bought from her... over almost 25 years now.

Argh, somewhere on this thread I was inspired to look in a shop and found a pretty, plain 100% cotton quilted women's open jacket. I cannot for the life of me find it now. Do any of you recognise this item from the shops you've posted?

roake.studio/shop/the-nicole-quilted-cotton-jacket This one Duds ?