Imagine this: You’re walking along the dreamiest pebbly beach. Sun shining down, hair slightly tousled by the breeze (but not too windy), wearing well-loved selvedge jeans rolled up at the ankle, an old chambray shirt with rolled-up sleeves (not folded, obvs), and perhaps some fancy leather loafers handcrafted by a local artisan – specifically, a crusty old man in a Cornish village who only makes six pairs per year. You’ve got ice cream in one hand that hasn’t melted all over you, and not a patch of sunburn on your embarrassingly pale English skin.
Sound familiar? That’s your bank holiday style expectation every time for me. What’s the reality though?
Monday morning, hungover you frantically checking the weather app – which is miraculously displaying four different weather patterns at once: rain, sunshine, clouds and what-the-fuck-is-that-symbol-that-means-we-have-no-idea warning you – while wearing boxer shorts and one sock, clothes strewn across your bed as if there’s been some sort of robbery by someone who’d clearly never heard of folding laundry. There’s something inherently conflicting about British bank holiday style.
We have to be prepared for four seasons in one weekend.
But we persist with the rose-tinted glasses wider than Cathy Tysons glasses and tell ourselves “this year it will be alright. This year we will get sunnybank holidayweather and not spend all day sat under a beach shelter eating half soggy sandwiches eating actual plastic poncho asking ah mate if we’ve got anymore rum.” Sure, prepare for all eventualities. But still expect the sun to shine.
It’s half our national DNA. The last time we had a May bank holiday, I had big plans. I invested in some lightweight cotton trousers (not too casual, not too dressy; the Goldilocks of bottoms), a series of linen shirts (carefully tousled in key areas to appear effortlessly spliffy after days of practicing “purposeful wrinkling” on YouTube), and even treated myself to a pair of Japanese canvas trainers that cost more than my monthly rent.
My mental image involved drifting around Suffolk in an ironic tote bag full of locally sourced foods whispering words of hope like “this time it will be alright” “this year the weather will bless us.” It rained. Pitch forked the heavens opened and spat fireworks of rain all over us. I ended up wearing the trekking trousers I panic bought from Mountain Warehouse in Cumberland sage (basically the Browns reputation in a colour), polyester rain trousers that made fart noises when I walked and a yellow rain jacket that belonged on a ship lost at sea.
My friends mum offered to lend me a coat but bless her, she was several ladles short of a huge cooking pot so that was never going to work. Enter Jon or Charlie, depending on who you ask – he works in investments, wears barely anything else except Reiss and Sunspel and turned up with his new girlfriend. He’d brought a full capsule wardrobe of clothes rolled to prevent creasing.
Linen jacket, swim shorts that could double up as shorts, suede engineer boots so white and crisp they probably hadn’t seen grass or an actual engineer. He even had a GODDAMN PANAMA HAT. Come Sunday afternoon he was wearing my spare battered old coat over a hoody he’d bought from a gift shop covered in a cartoon lobster and the words “I GOT PINCHED IN ALDEBURGH.” Bless.
His hat was balled up in his backpack, soggy beyond recognition. The girlfriend broke up with him a week later. I’m not saying it was my dodgy fish and chip shop hoody but… It’s something I’ve been striving for my whole adult life.
Probably since I was handed Men’s Health magazine for the first time and thought British men looked like fucking silly sods, covered in sweat with no tan lines, wearing £600 lightweight knits and loafers without socks on Cork beach. Yeah they’re dry. Stop staring you lot spend £400 on clothes you once owned an annual subscription for!
Nobody talks about what happens if you actually wore that shit in the UK. You’d either die of hypothermia, get soaking wet or get sand on your groin. Three places that sand does not belong.
I’ve spent years – too many bank holiday weekends ruined learning – the hard way preparing for bank holiday weather. I’m no trouser philosopher or style guru, but follow my tried and tested guide and at least you’ll avoid looking like a pole crotch farmer at summer league and burned on one particular patch of forehead. Rule 1: Layers, fucking idiot.
Don’t @ me with some #toneal layering bullshit either. I mean actual layers you can put on and take off goddamn jeans. Start: t-shirt, shirt, jumper, waterproof jacket.
Get me through about 90% of my weekend problems. That way if it rains you can wear all four, if it’s hot you only need the first two. Last bank holiday I got through at least three cycles of changing my outfit in the pub garden while we sat and drank for four hours.
The barman gave me judgemental eyes after the second full change. Rule 2: Acceptance that at least one item of clothing will become sacrificed to the almighty bank holiday gods. Best cream hoodie ever, worn happily for the first day at Whitstable 2019?
Covered in Heinz tomato sauce from a rushed lunch stop at the fish and chip shop, followed by ice cream drips, topped off with what I can only assume was pigeon sh*t. Washed it religiously every day when I got home but ya know what they say about suicide socks. Prepare for the worst.
Dedicate a whole outfit to getting covered in food, shit and tears so the rest of your clothes don’t mind quite as much when it happens. Bonus points for picking a rubbish old hoodie you don’t feel bad about ruining. Rule 3: Take one nice outfit.
For when you fancy going for drinks or food in a restaurant. Nothing mad, but smart enough you don’t feel like you literally just spent the whole day bucket list chucking. For me that’s normally some dark jeans that won’t show stains (SEE RULE 2) a nice-ish Oxford shirt that doesn’t need ironing (PEOPLE IRON ON HOLIDAY YOU FUCKING HEATHEN) and clean trainers that haven’t seen the inside of a dodgy arcade or beach.
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I keep this, like, in a spare plastic bag until needed for emergencies. Rule 4: Shoes are KEY. No shoe will perform their intended job perfectly.
White trainers will get soaked through and take days to dry. Leather shoes will never forgive you for sand and salt water. Flip flops will leave you with frozen feet half the weekend and the uni-shorts-leg tan that makes it look like you’re still wearing socks.
Bring back up options: waterproof shoes, comfy walking shoes, shoes that don’t look like a tourist rape warning when worn with no socks. I now travel with at least three options and Ben still thinks I’m mad. Spend hours arguing over shoes and backpack real estate because last time you packed trendy boat shoes that “could do it all” you ended up with blisters that lasted until Christmas.
Rule 5: Accept that this bank holiday will probably not be the Instagram edition you’ve been picturing since last November and pack accordingly. It took me AGES to realise this lesson. Lightweight linen suits, crisp white jeans, an entire arsenal of brightly coloured Breton tops that have me giving off major white sailing boat vibes (looked ON a bloody boat once, NEVER AGAIN).
Axed the whole ocean’s apart type of wardrobe after years of battered bank holidays. Now? Pack clothes that can survive getting a 99 Flake dripped all over you.
Clothes that you don’t care about getting shoved in a sweaty backpack at the first sign of sun because you’ve inevitably got four layers on. Clothes that won’t mind getting cream on them or sudden cloudbursts or sitting on a wet picnic bench. Lightweight convertible trousers that look like normal chinos but dry in five minutes if they get wet.
Ex-mountain climbers who got sick of looking like they were about to climb K2 started this brand in a garage shout out to whom ever. Had a couple of plain old t-shirts I didn’t care about in colours that hide ice cream well (navy, olive, dark red). Packed a lightweight packaway rain jacket that rolls up smaller than an apple.
Trainers I’ve already ruined on a weekend away so I don’t cry if they get sandy, as well as some lightweight waterproof walking shoes that aren’t hideous taupe suede shoes that basically force you to wear socks with sandals and have a conversation about whether walking poles are a bad look or not. Night time just slightly nicer versions of day time. Same trousers, smarter shirt, overshirt if it gets chilly.
Nothing expensive or you’d rather live with than ruined. Couple of reef hats for when the sun DOES decide to grace us with its presence. Did I really just mention the sun.
Ta-dah. Scroll back up to that first paragraph. That was me last bank holiday.
Westward Ho! Devon. August.
Smiling, relaxed, not giving a flying fuck about what I look like because nothing I was wearing could possibly get any worse weather ruined. First bank holiday since forever where I didn’t spend any mental capacity worrying about what I was wearing and could fully enjoy the time off. Well actually, that’s not true.
I spent most of the weekend watching the world’s finest offshore windsurfers “competing” but you know what? It looked damn good wearing trainers. Cut to my friend Vijay showing up looking like a sand sprayed dolce vita dream.
White jeans, midnight blue knitted polo, suede loafers. Almost confiscated his shirt as he was walking down the beach but some people have to teach these lessons themselves. White jeans survived a grand total of 47 minutes before a combo of Flake, sand and perching on what can only be described as a human-shaped slab of poo ruined any hope of them making the Sunday evening ferry.
The suede loafers were trodden on by a rogue wave and subsequently duck taped back together by him that evening.
By night two he’d nipped into tesco Express for some deuces shorts with “DEVON IS HEAVEN” printed across the arse, and flip flops with bottle openers on the sole. Bank holiday fashion isn’t really about fashion.
It’s about prepping yourself for yet another weekend of British inconsistency. Accepting that no hipsters along Brick Lane has ever had to deal with your bank holiday baggage and knowing that however hard you try you WILL get mud splashed, sunburnt, hammered and overpay for nearly everything you put in your body.. But equally, you’ll spend a whole damn weekend with your loved ones doing something you enjoy and that’s kind of nice too.
So here’s my REAL advice. Pack loads of socks. Just do it.
I don’t care who you are, you WILL need more socks than you think. Pack for rain, even when it’s 11 days of sunshine. Pack clothes that you like wearing and not what you think you should be wearing on the perfect beach weekend.
But DO pack a thermos of tea and a spare jumper, just incase….
