As I write this I’m looking out of my flat window in Manchester at possibly the best example of meteorological gaslighting I’ve seen this week. My BBC Weather app says “light cloud”, but what I can actually see is sunlight, one large unpleasantly dark cloud stalking its way eastwards, and what looks like a short sharp localised rain shower taking place directly across three streets from me. Britain.
This wasn’t even the worst of it yesterday. I stepped outside in dry, sunny conditions at lunchtime yesterday wearing literally just a shirt and light jacket, smug in my minimalism. By mid-afternoon I’d been rained on so heavily it was like someone was giving me a personalised waterboarding session.
By teatime I’d shed layers until I was sweatily clenching my light jacket in my hand, while simultaneously trying to suck up the chilly breeze blowing down the street with my teeth because it had warmed up so much. Doesn’t matter how you dress for this weather – you’re always wrong.
British weather is the eternal trap for men who want to look smart.
It flicks between seasons so fast it’s like someone is skipping through TV channels looking for something to watch. Sometimes it’s just outright grim. But more often than not it’s completely unreliable.
Last week the Met Office should’ve stopped forecasting and just tweeted an emoji of someone shrugging and written “Your guess is as good as mine, pal”. I love men’s style. I’ve been into it for so long that I can enthusiastically talk your ear off about the difference between Neapolitan vs English shoulders on tailoring.
I could write a whole feature on why you should care about selvedge denim weights. But if there’s one thing that living in the UK has taught me more than anything else when it comes to having great style, it’s how to dress for our ludicrous weather. My dad has one, and one sole strategy for British weather.
His skinny waterproof trousers are supplemented by a beige Marks & Spencer mac that he has owned since the days when they made sensible chinos in beige. “At least it’s waterproof,” he says, ignoring the rest of the problems with his relentlessly mid-tier jacket. You have to admire his logic. It’s almost Orwellian in its simplicity.
But years of wearing barely any layers beyond a tee shirt and watching me flounder in the mercurial British weather has taught me that if/when it changes, I want to be prepared without looking like Hardy Krügerer in Play Dirty. The secret is layers, guys. The humble layer.
It isn’t the pseudo layered look you see on Instagram of some poor bastard trying to blend six coats together to look street cred fashionable. No – I’m talking smart layers, something you can add or take away easily when that cheeky spring shower decides to hit, or when January feels like it suddenly moved into May for half an hour. I realised this circa five years ago when I was holidaying in the Lakes.
I packed a waxed cotton jacket for rain. I packed a thick knit for colder weather. I packed a thin ‘wind breaker’ for well, wind.
What I hadn’t packed was a medium weight jacket I could wear when it felt like all three of those weathers happened at once (quite common in the Lakes), but also took off easily when it suddenly decided to give me warm Sahara Desert-like sunshine. So, midway through the second day, I bought myself a cheap nylon quilted gilet from Millets. It wasn’t fancy.
It wasn’t trendy. It was just a black quilted bodywarmer that cost £30. But since that day it’s changed the way I dress in the UK.
Throw it on over a shirt and it keeps your chest warm without you feeling like you’re melting. Throw it under a jacket and it acts as insulation against the cold. Take it off and it doesn’t look like you’re smuggling small livestock beneath your clothes when you tie it around your waist.
I now own four different gilets: A breathable technical one for spring; A heavyweight tweed trimmed number for actual winter; And two in-betweeners to cover you know, spring and autumn. My wannabe-beyond-the-clouds-online-grooming retail-focused Londoner friends used to laugh at me forever for owning them (“Nice bodysteamer, Alex, did your mum buy that?”). But now they all wear them too because they soon realised it was the only way to not feel like rubbish whenever the weather mood swings.
Ok but gilets alone won’t solve your Britain dressing woes. What you need is an armoury. A boiler suit full of tricks and techniques that you can deploy whenever you’re caught out.
I’ve assembled mine over many years of getting caught out by British weather, so allow me to share my overriding philosophy with you: The four pillars of vestimentary anticipation. Firstly: Wool is god. Don’t underestimate the versatility of good wool – and particularly merino wool.
It keeps you warm when it’s cold; it’s breathable when it’s hot. And if you get caught in the rain, it’ll still offer some warmth even when wet. Get yourself a lightweight merino jumper to start – it can be worn alone on the milder days but also acts as a fantastic middle layer when you need it.
Secondly: It must roll up small. Any item of clothing you’re considering buying should pass the “does this thing roll up small in my bag?” test. Can you tie it around your waste without looking like a paedophile brother from Allo Allo?
Those trendy breathable Jackets that pop into their own little pocket at the touch of a button? Buy them. You’ll use them 9/10 times you go out during British spring and autumn.
Thirdly: overshirts. Those poor-men’s hunting jackets that aren’t really jackets, but rather thick cotton overshirts. They’re too warm to wear as a “sole layer” but too thin to justify wearing as a jacket on their own.
These are the pieces that’ll save your arse time and time again. Chunky enough to cut a cool breeze; thin enough to wear indoors. And they always have pockets.
Perfect for hiding gloves/sunglasses/emergency snack when the weather changes on you yet again. Years ago I visited Edinburgh for the weekend and after a rainy/pub heavy day one spent mooching about in the sunshine on day two, I realised my heavy cotton overshirt – worn over a t-shirt and under my windbreaker – was keeping me warm when it wandered down the breezy streets, but equally not sweating me to death when we decided to go and explore some suddenly sunny gardens. When the heavens opened again for our soaking walk back to the pub it doubled up as a surprisingly good rain jacket.
Result. Ok, ok onto materials. You know how suede, raw silk and white linen are the three fabrics that British weather exists solely to torment?
Think about it. Suede gets soaked through and takes ages to dry. Raw silk dips even a mild drizzle and goes all shity creased and sad.
White linen looks amazing – but only for about four weeks per year. Genuine leather is expensive. I ruined a pair of suede desert boots last year by wearing them in what was described as “light rain” – trust me, it was coming out of a hose pipe.
I couldn’t wear them again until they’d dryed so if I see British weather forecast anything more than “ight drizzle”, they stay in my wardrobe from September-March. I will happily make exceptions for coats/jackets – like this excellent suede bomber I adore – but I always have a waterproof bag to keep it in at the ready, like it’s a toddler that needs protecting from the rain. But what about in between seasons?
Or, more pertinently, that weird weather that’s neither anything? Not quite rain but not dry. Not warm enough to sit outside in just a shirt, but not cool enough to justify wearing your winter jacket?
It isn’t coming down hard so you can’t justify rain wear. British weather. Last month I visited Bath for a day of meetings.
The forecast was: “overcast with some showers. Max temperature 14 degrees”. Yep.
Utterly nonsensical British vagueness. So I layered up; water resistant/light jacket, merino jumper, overshirt, t-shirt. As I left my hotel and walked to my first meeting I found myself adding and removing layers as the temperature seemed to change with every street I turned down.
By the time I’d got to my meeting I’d removed my jumper (hot), put it back on (cold), taken my jacket off and was holding it in my hand (was it hot in here?) within the space of five minutes. The gentleman I was meeting – a wiry, stylish Brit who looked like he ran BP in the 70s – glanced at my rapidly bloating layers as if I’d just blownbrains across the carpet and sighed. “Raining on the wrong day, are we?” I paused, looked proudly at my system, then loaded each article of clothing onto my body one-by-one to show him how my system still worked in any weather combination. “Nah,” he said. “Get something that covers all the seasons in one. Although,” he added, pausing for effect as if he was about to impart some life-changing wisdom on me, “I do always keep a thin raincoat folded up in my briefcase, just incase.
Got away doing that for thirty years now.” That’s when it clicked. This isn’t my problem, guys. It’s every British man’s problem.
While Southern Europeans are out there sweating gorgeously colourful dresses and diligently working on their summersbody every August and September, Italian men are honing their messy-but-still-neat hair and ability to own the hell out of a blazer.
We’re still playing the British weather clothing game, forever attempting to walk the line between too hot and too cold without finishing our week looking like Oliver Reed in Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence. But it’s fun, isn’t it?
Next time you’re on public transport or sat in your local coffee shop, I want you to look around at the other British men around you. That guy with the jumper tied around his waist? Yeah, he’s hiding an emergency raincoat in his backpack.
That slightly overweight guy wearing roughly eight layers too many? Give him half an hour – he’ll be perfectly tempeted, just like the weather forecast said he might. Think about that next time you’re scoffing at some guy wearing a roll-up anorak.
We get it. British weather makes us all morons half the time. But at least we’ve got each other.
