Shop the end of summer sales like a pro, with savings as big as £397.50
SALE ON! Shop the end of summer sales like a pro, with savings as big as £397.50
WHETHER you are looking for great deals on luxury items or just want to save a few quid on your last-minute holiday wardrobe, we have you covered.
High-street sales are the perfect way to nab a designer buy for a more purse-friendly price.
In fact, the only time I treat myself to a designer item is if it has been slashed in price in the sales.
Follow these top tips to make sure you are a clever sales shopper, sticking to a plan rather than going rogue and buying something you never wear!
Shopping for your signature style in the sales will save you time and money AND help you build a classic curated wardrobe.
Online Vs in store
I prefer online shopping in the sales for many reasons.
Online takes all of the stress out of rummaging through sales rails looking for your size, only to find that it isn't there.
Carefully filter everything you are looking for, applying the correct sizes, brands, category, colours and price to find your perfect piece and save you hours.
I am less likely to panic buy something online than I am in store (step forward the Sando sheepskin coat that I can't wear because I am petrified I will ruin it in the rain!).
Quite often, I have had my eye on something in store earlier in the season, so I know how it fits, that the fabric is good quality and that it is something I need - and have waited patiently all season for it to be reduced.
This is the best way to curate a considered wardrobe rather than give yourself a quick shopping fix, and that way I know I will love the piece for years to come.
Look for brands with the most discount on sites like Net-A-Porter.com and Mytheresa.com, and go for items that will take you through to Autumn like statement knits, leather loafers and gorgeous dresses.
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Jumer, was £420, now £210 by Toteme at Net-a-Porter
Credit: Toteme At net-a-porter
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Dress, £189, now £65, Mint Velvet
Credit: mintvelvet.com
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Leather loafers, were £59.99, now £35.99, Mango
Credit: MANGO.COM
Last-minute holiday bargains
I also look for buys that will top up my existing holiday wardrobe.
I may take most of the same old stuff on hols every year, but a couple of top-up bits can make my wardrobe feel all sparkly and new again.
So a swimsuit that fits well, a new bag or pair of sandals and one new dress or co-ord are all I need each year.
Swimwear quite often sells out in the most popular sizes, but this swimsuit by Hunza G is one size fits all - which makes it the most liberating swimwear label of all time!
Another top tip is to look on sale sites all year round - Theoutnet.com sells off Net-a- Porter sale pieces for a fraction of the price
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Swimsuit, was £185, now £148, Hunza G at Liberty
Credit: libertylondon.com
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Sandals, were £85, now £42.50, John Lewis
Credit: JOHNLEWIS.COM
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Dress, was £427, now £129, Haight at Theoutnet.com
Credit: THEOUTNET.COM
Look for clothes that whisper not scream
If something has been a huge Instagram trend - like cow print, jelly shoes or bubble skirts - then they are probably going to be a one-trick style pony, so you should steer clear when buying in the sales, as the trend will likely disappear as quickly as it started.
Instead, look for items that you will reach for again and again, and will have longevity in your wardrobe.
Go for classics that won't date: a well-cut coat, a pair of tailored shorts or an Oxford shirt, for example
These items are wardrobe staples that will work hard and stand the test of time.
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Coat, was £189.99, now £150, H&M
Credit: HM.COM
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Bermuda shorts, were £75, now £30, Hush
Credit: hush-uk.com
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Shirt, was £85, now £42.50, COS
Credit: COS.COM
Think outside of the season
Shops often put past season's clothes onto sale rails so, even if it is absolutely sweltering outside and all you can think about is summer dresses, don't rule out great bargains like cashmere, coats and boots.
If you do your research you can see what trends from last winter are still doing the rounds for Autumn/Winter '25.
This year I will be looking for a designer quilted coat, leather knee boots and lightweight cashmere jumpers.
Forward planning like this can save you a fortune!
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Quilted coat, was £600, now £240 Toteme at Farfetch
Credit: FARFETCH.COM
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Quilted coat, was £59.90, now £39.90, Uniqlo
Credit: QNIQLO.COM
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Cashmere blend jumper, was £139.99, now £98, H&M
Credit: hm.com
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Black leather boots, were £199, now £99, Dune
Credit: DUNELONDON.COM
What is your luxury item?
Luxury materials like leather, suede and cashmere are always good sale investments - anything over 30% off on them is a real treat!
But don't go for anything crazy - a rainbow-stripe cashmere dress is probably not going to leave your wardrobe that often!
Black leather trousers, a designer bag or a brown suede jacket are great sale buys.
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Leather trousers, were £259.99, now £129.99, Mango
Credit: mango.com
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Suede jacket, was £299.99, now £179.99, Mango
Credit: MANGO.COM
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Leather bag, was £795, now £397.50, Neous
Credit: .neous.co.uk
Be practical
I always look for practical pieces that are useful in everyday life, but they still need to be stylish, too - think: a waterproof dog-walking coat but make it fashion, a pair of great training leggings that give your squat the edge, or a pair of walking boots that will incentivise you to take that hike.
When looking for practical pieces, I like to go to the specialist brands, like Barbour, Lululemon and Salomon, who do what they say on the tin.
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Coat, was £595, now £357, Barbour X Ganni at Net-a-Porter
Credit: net-a-porter.com
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Aligne leggings, were £88, now £34, Lululemon
Credit: LULULEMON.CO.UK
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Hiking boots, were £155, now £93, Salomon
Credit: salomon.com
Who, what, where?
Finally, I always ask myself these three questions.
Who am I buying this for?
If it is to impress other people, get a reaction on social media or I'm trying to look like someone else, then I normally have a word with myself and step away, especially if it is a designer piece.
Invest in yourself, and make sure the item suits your style.
I have made huge mistakes in the past trying to look like someone whose style I admire, only to find the sale piece lying dormant in my wardrobe with its hefty price tag still attached, because it just doesn't suit me.
These are sale items that are currently bringing me joy because they are so me!
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Trainers, were £90, now £59, Adidas Spezials at & Other Stories
Credit: stories.com
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Bag, was £65, now £39, COS
Credit: COS.COM
What am I buying this for?
Is there a gap in my wardrobe for this kind of item or do I already have something similar?
I tend to be a repeat buyer, so I have to really think about whether it is worth investing in another piece of tailoring, for example.
Think about something you seem to reach for every time you open your wardrobe but don't have covered.
For me that is a 'nice top' to wear with jeans or a pair of dressy shoes that don't have a heel.
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Top, was £77. now £47, & Other Stories
Credit: STORIES.COM
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Leather shoes, were £46, now £15.99, Parfois
Credit: PARFOIS.COM
Where am I wearing this piece?
Is it for a special occasion?
If so, think about rental as an alternative.
Quite often, we now wear special-occasion pieces just a few times, so price per wear we don't get our money's worth.
If it is a great work suit, a trench coat or a day dress that you know you will go to over and over again then nab yourself that bargain!
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Waistcoat, was £99.95, now £69.95; trousers, were, £99.95, now £59.95, both Massimo Dutti
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Trench coat, was £119.99, now £102.99, H&M
Credit: HM.COM
And don't forget to check out online resale sites like Vestiaire.com for designer bargains, as well as social media sellers like @hardyeverwornit who sell off influencers wardrobes.
You can quite often get a 'new with tags' piece for cheaper than in the sales…
Happy shopping!
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'It's great they've done this, but what would be completely transformative is to give free school meals of really good quality to all primary school kids,' he says, as we walk towards the neatly blooming vegetable patches that supply the café kitchens. 'There'll be a big cost but in 10 years time there'd be a much bigger saving in terms of the country's health if we put proper good real food in front of kids every school day. But it is hard for politicians to take a long term view. Instead you get governments nibbling at the edges, and with the last lot, not even doing that, to be honest.' Except that when Jamie Oliver tried to improve school lunches in 2005, going to war on Turkey Twizzlers, parents were so angered at being told what was best for their children that they fed them chips through the school railings instead. Isn't it the case that eating habits aren't solved by celebrity chefs making children eat more cabbage, but are bound up in far more entrenched issues around class and a dislike of state interference? 'Actually, Oliver's campaign did quite a lot of good,' says Fearnley-Whittingstall. Indeed, Oliver continues to campaign against processed food in school dinners, and last year set up a Ministry of Food to teach 11- to 14-year-olds how to cook from scratch. 'But I do think it falls to the Government to look after the health of its population. You cannot say, 'We'll provide a health service, but we're not going to talk about food or try to influence people's choices because that would impinge on their freedom, and we're not a nanny state.' Since Covid, that doesn't stack up – if you can intervene in people's lives to the extent you did with lockdowns, telling them not to go to work because of a disease whizzing around the world, why can't you intervene in what's the single biggest health crisis facing our country?' Fearnley-Whittingstall gave the Tories a bit of a kicking during their time in power, last year accusing then health secretary Victoria Atkins on BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg of doing 'next to nothing' to tackle obesity, arguing there were plenty of levers the government could pull to help. A few days later, Atkins told Politics Home that she didn't believe actions such as banning cartoons on sugary cereals were part of the answer. He's been a Green Party supporter for decades, but spiritually he's more inclined towards Labour than the Tories. In light of the furore over the party's decision to make farms pay inheritance tax from 2026, how good a friend does he think Labour is proving to be to farmers? 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Fearnley-Whittingstall first got a taste for the good life at six, when his parents – Robert, who worked in advertising and came from a landed gentry family, and Jane, a gardener and writer – moved from London to rent a farm in Gloucestershire. 'I got to ride on the combine harvester and got to feed the sheep in the winter. I thought it was just wonderful.' He may not be a farmer, but his River Cottage business – which he established after cutting his teeth as a chef at the River Café in Hammersmith – runs like a smallholding. Yet he's also faced difficulties: there used to be three other River Cottage restaurants in the surrounding area, but Covid and rising costs put paid to those. Now everything is centred on this vertiginous piece of land with panoramic views of Dorset and east Devon. The cost of living crisis is still having an impact. 'Like pretty much all hospitality businesses, we feel the effects of economic uncertainty and the increased cost of living,' he says. 'We are having to work harder to fill our courses and dining events, but so far we've had our best summer ever.' It's also undeniably idyllic: he points out beehives tucked in the trees and introduces me to Lucille, a sow, and her frisky litter – most destined to become charcuterie sold in the café. Further down is the farmhouse where the cookery school is housed, and where guests can rent one of five bedrooms overlooking a delightful cottage garden, today bursting with purple cosmos. Technically, River Cottage is not Hugh and Marie's home, they live about a 15-minute drive away in a farmhouse where they raised Oscar, Freddy, Chloe and Louisa, but as far as the nation is concerned, the brand and Fearnley-Whittingstall's home life are virtually one and the same. All the same, farming on TV is becoming a crowded field. Fearnley-Whittingstall has been a bit sniffy about Jeremy Clarkson in the past but today he is more mollifying. 'I haven't watched barely a minute of Clarkson's farm, but I would be silly if I hadn't noticed what positive things farmers say about him,' he says. Has he met him? 'Yes, once or twice, and I find him extremely amenable and civil and fun. I probably should spend a bit of time seeing what he's up to.' In truth, Fearnley-Whittingstall is probably too busy planning his next campaign to worry unduly about what Clarkson is up to. Having raised awareness of so many issues, it's hard to keep track. Alongside the River Cottage shows, he presents documentaries about animal welfare, the fishing industry, food waste, and Britain's weight crisis. Another bête noire is the role of corporations in polluting rivers. Earlier this year, he called on Nando's to clean up its supply chains, arguing that intensive chicken farming near the River Wye was killing the river. The day before we met, Parisians were photographed happily splashing about in the Seine – something, says Fearnley-Whittingstall, most of us can only dream of in Britain, where, according to the River Trust, 75 per cent of rivers pose a significant risk to human health. He believes the only solution is renationalisation. 'I think that, after the last election, people expected Labour would stand up for nature. But banning bonuses [for the CEOs of polluting water companies, a recent Labour policy] is not the same as putting in hard legislation to clean up our rivers,' he says. 'The privatised water industry is practically white-collar crime. It's an algorithmic money-making machine where everything to do with clean rivers and healthy sewage systems comes second to how companies can milk the system.' Nigel Farage's Reform Party has pledged to take water companies out of private ownership if they come to power. Yet Labour, says Hugh, doesn't have the guts to tackle it. 'They seem too terrified of being branded old-school socialists to renationalise. They're far too busy kowtowing, in a paranoid fashion, to every bit of noise Nigel Farage stirs up. Instead of simply saying, 'We don't agree with that.'' He agrees that, on the whole, the British government is culturally in thrall to large corporations. 'It's political cowardice. Particularly in the specific area of food policy, where the lobbying of the food companies to not be corrected or legislated has held sway.' Fearnley-Whittingstall likes making a nuisance of himself. He relishes his image as a thorn in the side of the political establishment. 'Politicians see that they've got to look like they might do something. But they also know they can sit on their hands, because they know that once I've done a programme about fish [his 2011 documentary Fish Fight examined the parlous state of fish stocks in British waters], I'm probably not going to do another one for five years. So they can, oh, well, he's got away now, so as you were, lads.' 'I stand by everything I said about Gaza' Yet recently, he's ventured into territories less obviously his bag. He has appeared several times on Laura Kuenssberg's TV show, but provoked audience ire by saying on a recent episode that the Israeli attacks on Gaza were 'catastrophic'. 'I was asked a direct question about the situation, and I brought up the issue of Gaza being in danger of falling out of that headlines,' he says. 'I stand by everything I said. But I think most people objected to the BBC booking me rather than my opinions. People said, 'well next time, let's have Nigella talk about the threat of North Korean nuclear power'. But I bet you Nigella would have some super smart things to say about that. So bring it on. I enjoy a bit of that cut and thrust.' On a previous episode, he also spoke about the disgraced chef Gregg Wallace, saying that Wallace had crossed a line when he described those who had accused him of sexual harassment as 'middle class women of a certain age'. (We are talking before the BBC's announcement that Wallace would not be returning to MasterChef after it upheld 45 of the 83 accusations against him; the investigation also exposed another MasterChef, John Torode, who was alleged to have used racist language, which Torode denies.) Fearnley-Whittingstall argues that the reality TV format can be unforgiving. 'Everyone is highly scrutinised, and when somebody falls down, the press has a field day.' But despite the many scandals that have rocked the world of celebrity chefs, he doesn't think the industry itself promotes a particularly toxic culture. 'Although the world of food and restaurants is high octane, it's actually quite non-judgmental. Hospitality doesn't care where you went to school. Ironically.' He says this because many people know he went to Eton, where he was a year above David Cameron and Boris Johnson. Years later, his cousin Sarah married Cameron's brother Alexander, who died in 2023 from cancer, but Fearnley-Whittingstall doesn't know Cameron personally. 'I don't have any social connections with the Cameron family. I have other friends who know him quite well, but he's not in my social group. Same goes for Boris, by the way, just in case that was your next question.' He has spoken before about his conflicted feelings about public schools, telling Radio Three's Private Passions last year that he thought there is 'quite a dysfunctional thing going on with a small section of our society being educated in this extraordinarily elite way and then going on to hold so much sway.' Yet he also defended his time at Eton as being an 'extraordinary experience.' Does he think private schools sometimes get a bit of an undeserved bad press? He laughs. 'I'm not over exercised about what press Eton or any other school gets, it doesn't worry me. I think they can defend themselves very well if they choose to.' What about Labour's decision to impose VAT on fees? 'I am in favour of VAT on private school fees. It obviously makes it tough for some families with kids in private education. But private schools are businesses, mostly seeking to operate at a profit, and I think it's fair they contribute VAT like other businesses. 'But I've started to become aware of the way my years as a boarder [he boarded from the age of eight] have had an impact,' he adds. 'I was quite homesick, and I think that probably has had an influence, in the way that, as an adult, home is quite essential for me. I want it to feel a certain way, to know that it delivers comfort and safety.' Does he think he consciously created River Cottage in the image of his own childhood, to give his children the very idyll he longed for during those long years at boarding school? 'We are trying to make something that's very special for our family, but it's not that I'm insisting or even hoping that my kids take the same thing from it that I did, because they're all going off in different directions.' In fact, his eldest daughter Chloe, 29, whom he and Marie adopted at the age of eight after her BBC journalist mother, Kate Peyton, was shot dead in Mogadishu, is a chef. Meanwhile, 26-year-old Oscar is a boat captain, Freddie, 22, is studying film, and 15-year-old Louisa is still at school. 'But yes, it's important.' What's it like when they're all at home – do they fight over the cooking? 'I've got much better at backing off, because they're essentially grown-ups now. In the past, they'd be like, 'I've got this.' And I'd say, 'No, you haven't quite got it.' Then they'd say, 'Get out my face. I'm cooking tonight.' We're past all that now, which is actually much more relaxing for me, because every single one of my kids is more than capable of doing a fantastic dinner for the whole family.' He's an interesting mix – full of zeal, determined to make a difference, deeply passionate about the soil and, emotionally, quite straightforward. There are no obvious demons. 'I have a little black dog nipping at my ankles, a medium-sized grey dog sniffing at my crotch, and a very fast blonde dog running around in circles when we go for a walk, but they're real. There's no black dog on my back.' But part of him remains that six-year-old boy. 'In my mind, my rural childhood has always resembled an adventure. And when I look at all this', he says, waving towards the garden, 'it still feels like it's an adventure to try and make a life here.'
