Country Mouse vs. City Mouse

My separate summer fashion personas

A few questions I’ve been pondering this week…

Is Jack Schlossberg taking the piss or crazy or launching his political career (or all of the above)?

Do I care if Demna stops doing couture?

Will any individual designer ever be as great as Dries van Noten?

Should there be an enforced retirement age for politicians?

Should I make my three-year-old make an ear-helmet while swimming so she stops getting outer-ear infections?

Can oat milk really be that bad for you. Like in the grand scale of bad for you.

What's going to happen to France on Sunday?

Do mother flamingos really turn white because of the stress of child-rearing?

And, when it gets as hot in town as it did this past week, should you break out the exact same dresses as you’d wear on holiday? Or is summer in the city a whole different category of wardrobe essential?

I think I do have an answer to this last one, which is yes.

The country mouse and the city mouse are both very much present in my sartorial soul, yet quite divergent. I own pink gingham things that I plan on wearing, say, in the French countryside this August. Things my hardcore minimalist friend Leia was horrified to find in my closet while staying with me this week “MAIS!? Moneeeka, what is thiiiis?!!?”

She doesn’t know about my secret ethereal life. It’s true it doesn’t resemble the version of me she’s seen in me in Paris in the years since we’ve known each other. Frankly, I have no idea what a committed monochromist like Leia (and her many, many style disciples) even wear in a rural setting… though something tells me it mostly involves black spandex.

When I travel to the sea or countryside I prefer to loosen things up. To get some air. Both literally (not much spandex aside from swimwear) and metaphorically. A floaty number here or there, a bright colour (provided it suits me), heck, maybe even a print.

Allow me to illustrate with some examples...

In Town:

Dress: Leandra Medine x Soeur Paris, bag: Loewe, Shoes: Mango.

Out of Town:

Dress by Matteau, patron saints of holiday wear. (Shoes: Hermes).

In Town:

In Chanel Metiers d’Art 23/24.

Out of Town:

Dress by Maria de La Orden

In Town:

Dress: St. Agni, bag: Toteme, shoes: Mango. My friend here is wearing Cartier.

Out of Town:

Another winner from Matteau. Please excuse the tanlines.

In Town:

Waring Rohe at Maison Rohe in Amsterdam.

Out of Town:

Arthur and I wearing a convenient’s giant tablecloth dress from Skall Studio

Exception!

There are few exceptions to this neurotic rule I seem to have conjured but I would argue the slip dress works as well in the country as it does at a beach restaurant or on a hot summer’s day (or evening) in the city.

Hauled up in the middle of nowhere recording FNF during Covid. Dress by Bias Editions.

Same Bias dress touring Lisbon. (Shirt is With Nothing Underneath).

With Paris’s finest in my go-to it’s too hot to wear anything else (or a bra) dress by Asceno London. Bag is Polo Ralph Lauren.

Deep in Provence, summer 2020. Another Bias number (sadly they have discontinued dresses but now do excellent homeware).

So what do you think?? Am I making my life complicated for no reason? Do the rules exist to be broken? Should I invest exclusively in slip dresses from now on (10x easier to pack anyway) and forget the rest? Are ear-helmets the way forward for my little pisces?

See you in the comments section…