Jess Cartner-Morley on fashion: how to do the country look – without being a flat cap cliche

If you’re an urban creature like me, you can go country-coded while staying aware you’re essentially playacting. The trick is not going OTT

Once a decade or so, the urban-centric fashion world discovers this delightful concept called The Countryside. With the vanishingly scant levels of self-awareness that are fashion’s default setting, it then proceeds to immediately and loudly tell the world about it. There are so many trees! Don’t you just love trees? Especially at this time of year when the leaves are lovely tasteful colours, great for selfies, very flattering to the complexion. The pubs are absolutely charming. Sometimes they even have sourdough.

Here we go again. It began with hiking boots, a couple of years ago. Last winter, the barn jacket was suddenly, inexplicably everywhere, and this season is wall-to-wall Fair Isle jumpers. Dressing like you are on a cosy mini-break is to autumn what dressing for a festival field is to summer: a version of countryside dressing conceived by someone who leaves the city for no more than 48 hours at a time. It is possibly not even a million miles from cultural appropriation. And at this point I need to hold my hands up and say: I’m as bad as any of them. I love the countryside but I, in my cold hard heart, am an urban creature, really.