It was half ten on a Tuesday when I left my flat wearing a lightweight mac, mid-weight jumper, and scarf that I thought – and was legitimately convinced at the time – would suffice for the weather. At quarter past ten, sweat had started accumulating at my lower back, as Manchester elected to bypass springtime altogether and make a beeline for midsummer. By noon, I’d ditched my jumper in favour of shirt sleeves and stuffed my mac into my messenger bag until it ballooned like I was trying to smuggle a toddler past airport security.
At 2pm, I was rendered transparent by rainfall that the weather app cheerfully described as “changeable”. By the time I arrived at an evening product launch I was covering that day, soaked and steamy and wringing out my hair with filthy-looking hands, I looked like I’d either run a marathon or gone through some sort of personal tragedy. The PR girl greeting guests at the door stared at me like she didn’t know if she should hug me or run away. “It’s pouring out there, isn’t it?” she said sympathetically. “The forecast said changeable,” I replied lamely, as though this cleared things up for her.
Because in Britain, it does. “Changeable” is British meteorologists’ way of saying “fuck knows what’s happening with the weather right now, so we’re going to hedge our bets by saying it’ll probably be all of the seasons in one day.” It’s lazy, it’s frustratingly ambiguous, but it’s also so helpful because it quite literally means everything and nothing. If the weather forecast says it’s going to be changeable in the UK, what that really means is: wear layers.
Lots of them.
Prepare for every eventuality but expect none of them to happen. And accept the fact that you will be under- or over-dressed for approximately 60% of your day, every day. I’ve been an obsessive dresser for fifteen years now, and have been dodging the barrels British weather takes potshots at us with for approximately 5,471 days.
But over the years, I’ve learned how to deftly (ish) handle our tragically changeable weather without looking like I’m auditioning for a mariachi band one second or smuggling Alaskan wildlife the next. What follows isn’t so much ‘advice’ as it is a survival guide compiled out of half a decade’s worth of getting it tragically, hilariously wrong. Unless we’re talking about literal layers (or lairs, because weathermate thou shalt make thine enemies jealous with thy badass moss-covered fortress), layering is king when it comes to dressing for British weather.
The mistake most Brits make is bundling up in bulk. Ourgo-to layers are almost always too warm and heavy to allow for much versatility once the temperature changes – what you really need is two or three thinner layers you can add or remove at will. I made this mistake for years before finally getting it drilled into my head during a weekend away in Edinburgh.
I brought one chunky jumper instead of two thinner ones, which essentially left me with two options all weekend: freezing or sweaty. Learn from my mistakes, kids. Start, as always, with a good base layer.
Now, I don’t mean jump down the knitting-your-own-performance-t-shirt rabbit hole and invest in some fancy merino thermals. No: I mean start with a cotton t-shirt you like the look of or a mid-weight merino that feels nice against your skin. The key is that it has to be something you can bare-itch shoulders showing without fear of dying of embarrassment if it miraculously clears up.
My usual fallbacks are either Asket’s t-shirts (about £35/$45/pricey until you realise they’ll last three times as long as H&M’s ones) or Uniqlo’s merino long-sleeves (about £30 and bafflingly better quality than other brands charging twice the price). Layer that bad boy up with your medium-weight jumper of choice. This is your MVP for “British changeable” days.
Avoid anything too heavy – you don’t want to be sweating like a beast every time you cross the Tube – as well as anything too thin. My mid-layer lifesaver is a medium-weight John Smedley merino jumper I picked up in a sample sale four years ago for the princely sum of £90 (down from about £180). It’s warm enough to actually feel warm, but not so heavy that you feel like death if it happens to decide to grace us with its presence.
Oh, and also: it collapses down small enough in your bag to not feel ridiculous if you take it off. Trust. This is the layer most people royally fuck up.
It’s usually too warm and bulky to want to carry around when you take it off, too thin to actually keep you warm when it does come out, or – god forbid – made out of some cheap acrylic that’ll have you sweating by the time you step foot on the Overground. Spend money on this layer if you have to spend it on nothing else. Invest in a mid-weight merino or cotton-cashmere blend.
Nothing too bright or trendy – a plain grey, white, or black will see you through 90% of “changeable” days. Now brace yourself. Outerwear.
Oh, British weather and your piss poor understanding of the word “rainy”. See, in England, rain rarely falls in huge, battering waves the way it does in, y’know, ACTUALLY rainy countries. Ours tends to come out of nowhere in angry, disgruntled bursts that’ll fill your shoe with water, followed by about twenty minutes of laughing at you while you’re drenched.
Which means you need a jacket that’s equal parts waterproof (not water resistant, ACTUAL waterproof), breathable (don’t want to melt inside when it stops), and compact enough to shove in your bag when it does stop. You have two options here that won’t disappoint. Option one: go fully technical.
Patagonia makes a fantastic Torrentshell jacket (£150) that packs down smaller than most hardbacks, repels actual cloudbursts with ease, and breathes well enough that you won’t immediately look like you’re growing algae in your pits. It looks like something you’d wear camping, sure, but also something you’d rather wear than rot in a ditch. Option two: shell out the big bucks for something that looks decidedly less outdoorsy.
Private White VC.’s Ventile cotton mac (£450+, though I picked mine up in the factory sale for about £300) is made from a breathable cotton fabric that’s been used to make pilots’ flight suits since the Second World fucking War. Neat trick it plays: it absorbs moisture when it’s dry, swelling up and becoming virtually water repellent when wet. Bonus points: it looks like an actual coat you might wear as part of a real outfit, as opposed to climbing a mountain.
It doesn’t pack down small, but it fits in your bag far easier than bulkier knit jumpers. A NOTE ON THE BOTTOMS: If you’re going to wear jeans on a changeable weather day like some grotesque sandstone SpongeBob casually suggesting jeans are fine to wear, at least wear technical ones that dry faster and don’t feel like you’re sitting in a waterlogged condom when they do eventually give up the ghost and soak through. If you want to avoid jeans altogether, my usual fallback is chinos with a low percentage of technical fabric blended in.
About 2-3% elastane or similar means they dry quicker and feel far less unpleasant when our lord and rain giver decides he’s had enough of your sorry ass for the day. Believe it or not, there’s better options than Uniqlo’s stylish-but-slappy wearingEZY trousers. Their cotton-elasticated chinos (£45) are exponentially better value than their “Jeans FallWtwJmjzxzxzxze!” collection and, while not exactly thrilling, do the job when it comes to quotidian changeable days.
If you’re after something smarter that can handle our schizophrenic weather with relative aplomb, Albam and Folk both make fantastic cotton synthetic blends that feel far more luxe than they have any right to while doubling as effective rain-breakers when need be. Ah shoes. The final frontier.
The problem with shoes and British changeable weather is that they often can’t do it all. Your classic goodyear-welted leather Oxford shoe from Loake or Trickers WILL last you a decade. They will also destroy your feet if you get caught out in a surprise shower, forcing you to stuff them into your bag where they’ll turn into damp, smelly bricks until you’ve had time to let them air out with shoe trees over night.
My revelation? Turns out Clarks make some legitimately great shoes. Their Goretext range – which essentially means waterproof but doesn’t feel like it – offer up some fantastic alternatives to your standard fare.
The Desert London (£130) in particular is a solid derby that looks like a normal shoe but has a waterproof membrane and rubber soles rather than leather ones. They’re not as nice as something fancy – you will still look like an exhausted hellhound if you get rained on – but they’re leagues better than trying to wrestle with sodden leather shoes for the rest of your day. I bought a pair of Veja about a year ago and they’re now my changeable weather default shoe.
They look smarter than they have any right to, handles rain surprisingly well (has some sort of treated upper that repels moisture) and, best of all, dry really quickly if you do end up getting caught out. The key with any shoe is avoiding mesh uppers (basically perforated water traps) and really expensive leather that demands to be babied. Miscellaneous: add-ons and rain-dodging accessories.
Obvs you need a goddamn umbrella (London Undercover make ones that actually last more than three uses, but at £65 they sort of should). But also invest in a bag with a decent sized interior pocket that can expand once you’ve shoved half your outfit into it without immediately looking like you’re off for a three-month hike. Ally Capellino’s bags (from £300, easy to find on sale) have multiple large interior pockets that are perfect for your bulging jumper and extra-large umbrella, but have stiff enough frames to avoid looking like a hastily packed sack of shit when zipped up.
Here’s a secret I will never divulge to anyone: keep a microfiber cloth for glasses in your jacket pocket at all times. The ones that were literally designed for wiping glasses. When you find yourself having to power-walk through a surprise downpour and have absolutely zero option but to get soaked, you can at least use that teeny weeny square of fabric to quickly demist glasses, wipe down your phone screen, or give your watch and leather goods a once over so they don’t get water damaged.
I haven’t lost a single gadget to British rain splashes since I started doing this. Last but not least: “Warm rain”. The one affliction our gloriously changeable weather just can’t seem to shake.
If there’s one type of weather that gets up our noses more than any other, it’s when it decides to chuck it down… but not cool down. British Summer time, am I right? You can’t dress for warm rain.
It mocks every fibre (har har) of your being, landing just heavy enough that you’ll look like you’ve jumped in the fountain come Wednesday but not wet enough that you’ll want to wear waterproof trousers and wellies. If you see warm rain in your forecast, embrace it. Wear as little as possible that can at least dry relatively quickly.
Bonus points if you invest in a water repellent spray to coat everything with – ninotayo makes a damn good one. The worst part about living here isn’t the weather, mates. It’s the sheer amount of effort you have to put into juste au cas ou-ing for it.
I moved here five years ago from Madrid, where I’d lived for pretty much my entire life. I still remember my Spanish friend telling me back when I’d first got to London, beer in hand as we watched the sunset over Richmond Hill… “In Spain, I dressed for the day.” He paused for effect, staring out over the Thames like he actually knew something I didn’t. “In London, you gotta dress for about five days that might happen between breakfast and lunch.” And he was right. British weather isn’t just changeable.
It’s spiteful. It’s a chaos hurricane of frustration that’s actively trying to make you look stupid no matter what you pick out of your wardrobe that day. It’s why we talk about the weather more than anything else here.
Sure, it’s small-talk. But it’s also our way of collectively commiserating with each other over our wonderful, cursed weather. The trick, I’ve learnt, is never to quite mind getting it wrong.
We Italians would cry. Sob into our artisanally knitted woolly jumpers if caught out without a waterproof coat or mandatory flask of coffee. But here?
We chuck on a hoody. Make a joke about how “typical British weather” it is. Accept that we’ll get soaked – but know it’ll change again in five minutes anyway.
Hell, cheque the weather app when you leave the house. Layer up. Invest in the pricey gear that’ll actually see you through England’s Goldilocks days.
But if all else fails? Remember that at least 84% of Britain is built for our weird weather.
Pubs.
Have coat hooks. And some even have drying areas by the radiator for sodden idiots like us. Restaurants know there’ll be puddles right outside their doors when it rains so they expect you to traipse in soaking wet.
Your coworkers know if they haven’t seen you at lunch, you were probably stuck on the Central line in a storm praying to Judy Garland it let up by the time you got off at Oxford Circus. “Changeable” might be the single least helpful weather forecast literalists can give you, but it’s actually the most honest. Changeable weather is meteorologists shrugging and knowingly admitting that they have absolutely no idea what’s going on with British weather right now. Trust me.
You will get it wrong. Wear that jumper you love and immediately regret spending forty quid on 90% of the time. Find yourself sobbing into your rum ration because of course it poured down the second you stepped outside with nothing but a tee-shirt on.
It’s all part of the charm. Embrace the suck. ■
