Since moving out of London, I’ve become entirely dependent on Instagram to see what women in the world’s coolest fashion capital are wearing right now. I didn’t realise quite how important my organic street style–spotting opportunities were when our work lives were “normal” and I was spending a great portion of my week trekking around town for meetings, events and press appointments. Just by some sort of magical, natural osmosis, I was absorbing the style beat of the city and intuitively gaining insight into what women were wearing in real time. It has always fed into my editorial work, and since moving, I’ve definitely found it harder to be truly in touch with genuine trends rather than social media–led frenzies.
Fortunately for me, the medium of IG and London-based women who document the outfits they actually step out of the house in are filling the large void—that and the fact that we’ve already set our social media editor out on the hunt for street style looks IRL around some of East London’s hippest postcodes. So what’s proving to be popular for summer 2023? A finely tuned mix of classics and pieces made for peacocking—a standard London ratio of laid-back and loud, then. Keep scrolling to see the trends you can buy on a lean budget that have a big seal of approval from the London set.