Post by CM

So while eeeevvvv-eeeerrr-eeeee one is loving/loathing/complaining about the hot, hot heat they’re experiencing old CM here is mildly uncomfortable in slight humidity and drizzle in the wild, wild West. Of Ireland. Yesterday, for the first time ever I drove in the rain. Remembered how to start the back windscreen wiper and everything, which definitely impressed my instructor! But while I worked that clutch, brake and accelerator in my Penneys knock off Cons, it got me to thinking about drivers of yore and their jaunty driving gear.

Well of course you need a full on face scarf to protect yourself from midges. You are driving in a park after all.

Imagine fitting that hat in your little Nissan Cooper!

See, these are appropriate driving shoes. There was an ad on TV recently about how great women drivers are, and how they often do it in “questionable footwear”. How? How?! Seems that anything with a heel would be a disaster waiting to happen. Sensible shoes for the win.

Now, it’s long been on my radar that if you own a convertible in Ireland, it’s (more or less) the LAW to take it out every time there’s a sunny day. Oh, the rain’s stopped! Better get the car out for a spin. Take note from Grace Kelly’s neck scarf and driving gloves for how to accessorize your totally justified and practical motor.

But if you’re a bohemian type, feel free to let your frizz free as you’re being ferried about by your handsome Colin Firth in a flat cap (mandatory for the men folk). Just be aware that you will look like this once the journey is over:

So what do we do in these modern times, when our cars are extensions of our wardrobes and you’re as likely to go for a drive to Lidl as you are a fabulous minibreak to a country estate?

Well. As Ryan Gosling showed us in the impossibly stylish Drive, driving gloves are not just for posers and posteurs, but for cool criminals too! Even if your crime was once stealing a sweet from the pick-n-mix as a child,  you can carry the look off.

If you are planning on feeling the wind in your hair on a summer’s day, don’t forget that aformentioned scarf (we love scarves here at TM CM Ireland, see why they’re the best thing ever here!).

Photo from The Cut

Shades too are a pre-requisite, obviously. And a bucket hat, if you really think you can pull off the look (and you know you can).

Audrey Hepburn in How to Steal a Million

Vroom Vroom!