How to effortlessly switch your style between rural and city

I became a double lifer quite abruptly. In 2022 we got the keys to an old Georgian parsonage, which my husband initially sent me a link to as a joke. It was the same price as the shoeboxes enthusiastically presented to us as family homes in North West London, where a larder-sized patch of artificial grass was labeled ‘a garden’ and there was no wiggle room to add any value.

We never thought we would actually buy it. But an offer was later accepted and we traded the rising childcare costs and bad Uber habits we’d enjoyed in London for ash paint and a leaky roof in Dorset.

I arrived longing for green space and relief from unforgiving London keeping up with the Joneses culture and the dirty commute. But once I got deep into the sticks, I soon found myself craving the energy, effervescence and frivolity of it.

My weekly trips back have since transformed a city I had lost patience with into a bustling metropolis where museum, gallery and theater trips could be quickly booked and dispensed like a medicine. If an unsolicited push from the Central Line or a crippling series of taxi fares broke the spell, I’d chug back to Dorset, or to the in-laws in Oxfordshire.

Initially, all the yo-yoing gave my wardrobe a Jekyll & Hyde character, not quite Louboutins-to-Jods taste, but wheelies were full of silk dresses, leather jackets and white boots on the way to London, and discarded for their scruff and once-active workout gear on return. But as the boundaries between city and country life blur – see farm shops popping up in London and cult bakeries colonizing Georgian market towns – so too do dress codes.

The truth is, most of us who weave between city and country (a privileged, obscure group who choose to spend more time on the highway than on the couch) are more likely to ditch the black city stompers for a pair of taste-defying Crocs. – a choice that will fly well below the national Instagram shots.

Some rural clichés ring true: oversized, moth-ridden cashmere sweaters with yoga leggings pawed by dogs, cats and small, sticky children are an official uniform of the rural bush. We will take a worn Barbour for walks. There’s the tweedy corner of the wardrobe for outdoor activities and the velvety sequined side for raucous dinner parties that would never survive a London tube journey.

But over time I’ve seen a few experienced doppelgängers move back and forth between both settings in essentially the same outfit, with just a single scarf/jacket/shoes attached to make it for The Big Smoke. I realized that it really all comes down to a few hero items that can span both worlds.

The T-shirt

I’ve never really been a shirt girl, but living in Dorset has taught me to love them. They’re the Carolyn Bessette Kennedy of your wardrobe, as at ease on the back of a horse as they are gliding through an airport or weaving through chic boutiques around town.

You can go simple and simple with the linen shirts With Nothing Underneath from ex-Voguette Pip Durrell. These cool basics for girls are the ultimate canvas for any layered look and look great with jeans or silky trousers in the summer. I like to wear coffee-coloured shirts in the country, layered with ‘proper’ country clothes from House of Lucan, should the occasion arise, or, less formally, with cashmere grandpa cardigans. In the city I would wear them with a leather jacket or jeans and boots.

A friend and ex-Gucci PR, Cat Earp, who now owns and runs Aller Dorset (the chicest cabin stays in the south), rocks the look of a statement collar shirt – one that feels a bit Bathsheba with a country green background, and which is just as attractive under a denim jacket in Portobello. Ganni is a good choice for the statement collar shirt, as are Whistles (H&M on a budget), or you can browse Etsy for a little vintage gem.