Gorgeous European women and effortless style

[Bobobobbins]

Just returned from Barcelona and my god did I feel like the dowdy Brit abroad despite being generally considered fairly well put-together here in the UK 😂

What is it about European women? Everywhere I went I saw hoards of striking local women of all ages wandering around effortlessly dressed in simple tailored trousers and tank tops. Barely any makeup, just a great tan and some silver jewellery. Hair was never particularly coiffed or styled, but I notice it's always quite nicely coloured with a simple cut and then left to dry into a natural wave.

Am I looking at this through rose tinted holiday glasses? If I saw the same women on the tube in rainy London, would they look less chic? I struggle to think so!

What's their secret?

I think it's normal to think a different nationality of women look 'better', but wonder if it's just a case of 'different'.

As a PP said, I could name ways that British women look better overall, and I would agree that a pale-skinned Scottish woman might not look her best in the heat of Barcelona in the same way a Spanish woman may not be so striking in an autumnal mizzle.

I think it's mostly weight and spending more on quality clothes rather than fast fashion.
I lived in Paris for 4 years and when we came back to the UK the people seemed very fat! Especially out of London.

I was in France and Spain in the Summer. It was hot as hell and yet in Spain women were wearing really tight trousers etc. I didn't see anyone looking especially stylish.. in France (the south) everyone just looked normal...plenty of people of all shapes and sizes wearing all sorts. There were A LOT of women with very bronze leathery skin, dyed black hair and bad fillers etc. I'm biased but I like the variety of styles here in the UK for men and women. It keeps life interesting.

On the flip side many of them would look very unwell and miserable after a cold damp british winter. Think hair looks massively better in the heat but takes hours to dry in the winter requiring innumerable scarves. Pale skin get rosy cheeks in the cold, darker skin goes sallow. Larger northern frames (not fat, but just broader and taller like Dutch and German) carry coats and jumpers better, but look a bit hulking in strappy tops. You can tell which way I skew!

its generally the well off ones, regular europeans just look normal.

@WhereAreWeNow

YY to your comments.

There's a preference for style as opposed to fashion. This means you see more of a classic look and less of the false eyelashes, gel nails, straightened hair, hoof heels, and flashy colours, or the twee patterns of the likes of Boden.

Colours tend to be muted, and shapes tend to flatter figures. Working with, not against what you've got seems to be the general approach (in places where personal appearance matters more anyway).

I was on the Amalfi Coast and in Cannes this summer (not normally our sort of places! - and it's the men I noticed more than the women, tanned in white linen shirts, really nicely tailored trousers.

but singaporeans dress terribly (its the weather)...I was very admiring of the way Londoners dressed when i moved here. Singaporeans are a lot skinnier, its a mystery given the food!

I’m in Spain at the moment and have been thinking this very thing. The Spanish vs the British on the beach is striking. They’re tanned and very slim with not an ounce of cellulite. Even the women with a few young children in tow look utterly fantastic. Whereas the British (and me) tend to be pale and flabby at best. I genuinely think it must be down to cultural norms around diet.

I agree with this. I spent the summer in a French Mediterranean city - not a touristy one - and I would say the general population is just as badly or well dressed as you'd find at any UK seaside resort - some look great, many not so much. Overall the UK might be more overweight on average and more likely to burn.

The city I was in was rammed full of piercing and tattoo artists and tattoos were just as common as they are in the UK - including on older French women. Also many more boob jobs on the med - though less botox / fillers / heavy make up.

What a lot of people think of as classic Euro style I think is sometimes dull and frumpy - superga, slacks and polo shirt - yawn. Fast fashion is dreadful but at least in the UK we experiment more and have more variety in what we wear. The ever changeable British weather is responsible for why we can't develop a classic 'uniform' - we never know what we need to be wearing.

I do love the older French women in their bikinis though - I want to be on the med in my bikini when I'm 80+, smoking gitanes and drinking cocktails.

Part of it is the pressure and the 'dressing up' for a meet-up with friends, etc. I knew an Italian woman with nice curly hair, but she would straighten it for 'occasions' like going out and she told me this was pretty common in Italy. I thought she looked much better with the curls.

One of the virtues of the UK is that people are less judgemental about dress and especially less vocally judgemental about dress, so not only can people dress more casually but within a grade of formality can dress more according to their own preferences than is often seen in other countries. I dress in a style that's often called somewhat 'masculine' and I feel like I stand out more abroad/in my home country than in the UK.

(This is also personal, but I have a grandmother back home who every single time I see her, makes comments about how I should dress in a different way. This isn't only a country thing - she didn't like how my mother dressed either, so it's not me living abroad and many of the things I have I bought there/were also on sale there; and on the other side, my mother and my other grandmother weren't this type of critics at all.) It's part of a harsher beauty culture in general - a lot more of the idea that if a woman isn't adhering to certain trends of femininity - nicely done nails, depilation, make-up, a feminine style, then she's not 'looking after herself'.

It's true that some of the awful styles we get in the UK are pretty UK-limited (maybe they're also in the US, but uncommon in certain other European countries) - I'm thinking the orange spray tan, a particular kind of very heavy makeup, think very contoured, with large hoopey jewellery, one of the styles that are considered chavvy here. But at the same time, while this may be a particular UK iteration, you can see in other European countries also very heavy (and similarly, often grotesque) make-up. It's slightly different.

I spent 10 years living on france, and all around the country in very different regions, in cities and the countryside too, plus Paris. In some of the godforsaken parts of thr country, trust me, there are women walking around with chunky straightened highlights and wobbly bits!

Its simple though: those med women have better bodies and as they turn old they develop this mahogany sinewy look which I think looks great

However British women, even if its buried deep beneath an astonishing layer of makeup, and even if it can be blotchy, have better skin, plumper and smoother, even the hardcore older drinkers and smokers. I'm not sure why this is. But I have rarely seen those same sunken weathered faces you see on the med so I can only conclude that sunlight is probably the single worst thing you can do for your skin, well above smoking and drinking.

My french SIL is 45 and she has an absolutely amazing body, really slim and muscular despite two kids, and it's pretty natural as shes fairly sporty but doesnt go to the gym. However...I am being objective here as I love her...Her face is deeply creased and facially she genuinely looks older than my mum, who is 65. I think that's because from May on, she spends all afternoon baking on her terrasse and in the winter she also does some UVs.

Her hair and nails are very important to her. Her ends always look freshly trimmed and her nails are always done. She wears very boring clothes that always look great, and this isnt someone who has a lot of money at all, if she had a Primark near her she would shop there. Through the autumn and winter she only wears black. Black dresses with black ankle boots. That's it. In the spring and summer she changes it to white and only wears white dresses with strappy heeled tan sandals.
On her low key days she will wear skinny jeans with a black or white tshirt and pristine white trainers. I have never seen her wear anything with colour or embellishments such as prints or ruffles.

Overall I would say that the biggest thing these continental women have going on is the tanned skin. I'm not sure why this is but a tan makes everything else, be it extra weight or frizzy hair, look fine. Even if you have perfectly blemish free pale skin, it doesnt look as pulled together when you are dressing down. I have no idea why this is, there has to be an explanation for it!

On the other hand, I would say that fair skin especially with light eyes looks fresher and better when the light changes and the weather goes darker. So I would say that the stereotypical indigenous British pallor is actually perfectly suited to the indigenous climate.

If you want to look "in place" when you go to the Med next time, I would get a tan before you go, even a fake one. I would also stop with the summer wardrobe thing: it's a really British thing to buy all these "summery" clothes, just wear what you would wear in autumn without a cardigan or tights. The only people I saw in france wearing cute prints, ruffles, bright colours, seasonal "trend" pieces were teenage girls. Or those 80 year old beach babes who had clearly stopped giving a fuck 😁

We all come into our own, in our own way, in our own time and place.

Spent two weeks in northern Spain this summer and I was very impressed with the women there. I live in London so improbable lips, overt Botox etc is commonplace. In Spain the women seemed more natural, not overly made up, often simply and reasonably stylishly dressed. It probably also helps that on the whole they often are blessed with good, even features, great hair and you see fewer very overweight people. I probably was frumpy in comparison but I was enjoying being there and didn’t really care. Loved the vibe.

I was in Spain last week and there was an Italian family on the beach and the mum looked so amazing and stylish in just a bikini so I was trying to work out what it was about her that did it.

She was very tall and slim and had that lovely caramel skin tone compared with my see-through mottled legs. Her hair was medium length, thick and dark with a natural wave and tied back with a scarf but not “done”. She had a simple olive bikini and no make up.

I was working my patented “beach grandma” look of linen shorts, a floaty cotton shirt and big sun hat to avoid getting burnt to fuck.

Also her son was older and left her alone to relax and sunbathe rather than being constantly harassed by a toddler like I was which probably helps😆

"it's a really British thing to buy all these "summery" clothes, just wear what you would wear in autumn without a cardigan or tights"

I disagree with this. People all over wear shorts and sleeveless tops. I wear the same things autumn-winter-spring (with various layers on top), but I'd be roasting in them for most of summer.

I think the summery clothes phenomenon is quite British- see the Boden catalogue from March onwards. Those big flowery prints aren’t popular in France at least , the Spanish might be a bit more adventurous with colour and print.

You should try living in Copenhagen or Stockholm- I always felt a bit of a shortish fat mess but on the other hand it was very easy to buy lots of black in simple but flattering styles!!

“it's a really British thing to buy all these "summery" clothes, just wear what you would wear in autumn without a cardigan or tights”

I don’t find this to be true at all in Italy, everyone has two wardrobes and puts all their summer clothes into storage around the end of September. They switch back into trousers and get out the fine knits and lightweight puffer jackets even if it’s still boiling hot.
I do agree that the summer prints differ though, and you do see a lot of block colours worn in neutral tones, especially older women.

I completely agree about the summery prints. I noticed the ludicrously beautiful young women on the beach in France were generally wearing very plain (teeny) bikinis. One colour. Usually black. No fussy prints or embellishments. Very chic.

I disagree OP. I lived in France and was shocked at how badly dressed people were once you were out of the Paris region - I lived in the Loire Valley. People had bad skin, were overweight and had awful cheap clothes - because they were poor.

I holiday in Spain and Portugal and again, once you are out of the chic areas, people dress badly - and all of the young woman have sleeve tattoos!!!

if you look around Kensington in London; Park Avenue in NY, The 7th Arroindissement in Paris - you will see beautiful women - they have money. If you look in the areas where poor people live in the equivalent of council flats - well, you won’t think they are the most stylish women on the planet.

There is a global stylish woman and she is wealthy, and slim and puts effort into her fitness, clothes and grooming.

Yes, slimness and dark, tanned or olive skin help, as do not being slaves to fashion and wearing what suits and fits well, in natural fibres. Also natural make up and well cut, swishy hair!
I agree with @ChilliPB , though, “I bet if you hung out in the nice areas of London, or Edinburgh, or wherever you’d find there were lots of nicely dressed attractive people. When I go on holiday especially on a city break, I spend a lot of time in the areas with good shops, bars, restaurants etc. So the locals that are there tend to be out for drinks and maybe the more affluent crowd too. When you’re out exploring a city all day you might end up at dinner wearing your daytime outfit trainers, whereas a local woman might have come from home and be dressed up for the evening.”

I've never noticed the increase in style on going to Europe, although I have read multiple MN threads from women anxious about going abroad, especially to Italy.

If you go outside a city in Italy, you often find a lot of very badly dressed people. Because wages are low, money is tight and so clothes are cheap.

In expensive parts of cities you may find very well-dressed people, but often in a style that isn't going to translate to the UK. If I wore head-to-toe Pucci or Cavalli where I live, I'd look nuts.

There are also trends which just haven't hit the UK eg every single person wearing a blue puffa jacket in May, to the point it looked like the law.

If you hang out in an expensive area (which tourist spots often are) you will see young thin people who care about clothes. You can find the same in the UK if you go to Holland Park, or Notting Hill. It's not different.

I don’t find this to be true at all in Italy, everyone has two wardrobes and puts all their summer clothes into storage around the end of September. They switch back into trousers and get out the fine knits and lightweight puffer jackets even if it’s still boiling hot.

Glad someone else has noticed the puffer jackets!

Tourists: Yay, it's one degree hotter than at home, shorts and T-shirts
Italians: Can, you not feel a draft? Puffer jacket until we bake.

I really loved the look in Amsterdam, on women of all ages. Slightly eclectic, but not in a mad “artsy” way. The boutiques were full of gorgeous, quality pieces & the prices weren’t outrageous. You’d pay the same here for shapeless tat.

I don't find tanned skin attractive- I just think wrinkles and skin cancer. The mahogany sinew look is deeply unattractive.

Tbh, your sister in law's dress regime sounds like the style equivalent of watching paint dry. I suppose you can't make a mistake if you're that unadventurous but I'll take an overblown British summer flowery dress any day over a rigid wardrobe of black and white.