No discussion of Britain’s sartorial tics proceeds very far before it collides with a cloud front, a rainstorm and the occasional heatwave. The weather doesn’t merely affect the way we dress, it defines it. It may be no exaggeration to say that most of the enduring wardrobe components this country has given to the world – the trench coat, the argyle sweater, the cashmere twinset, the wellington, the sprigged tea dress – arose from a need to combat the elements. As for our other great contribution, thank 1,000 years of military doggedness. Savile Row tailoring wouldn’t exist without Army uniforms. Without tailoring there would be no mods, no Vivienne Westwood, no easily definable system for telegraphing one’s class. Punks wouldn’t have looked nearly so sharp.

Pragmatism may be the fundamental principle on which British style is built. A country which for centuries had no equivalent of la passeggiata, that evening parade in Mediterranean and Latin countries in which beautifully turned-out people stroll along the balmy streets, found more idiosyncratic ways to communicate its sense of chic. Layers, that stand-by of the draughty British home, are something at which we excel, and a habit the rest of the world now emulates, thanks to avatars such as Kate Moss and brands such as Burberry, which took the haphazard approach of chucking on any old ropey jumper over a summer dress, over a pair of woolly tights, and made it look chic and luxurious. Lo, modern eclecticism was born.

But British style is also about not being a hostage to fortune. It’s about being brave enough to bare your legs and wear a boob tube in Newcastle on a Saturday night in February. It’s about ignoring the What Not to Wear brigade and donning hipsters and a halterneck when you’re 14 stone and several decades beyond 25. It’s about sticking by your velour tracksuits until death do us part, even if you never do any exercise. It’s about wearing what Kate or Cheryl wear, even if you’re on pocket money. No one follows trends like a British teenager – and thanks to traditional British frugality, there’s a high street that can provide her with instant updaters for the price of a CD. It’s about going shirtless (if you’re a certain kind of male who prides himself on his red-bloodedness and hasn’t quite acknowledged his moobs) in the city when the mercury hits 18C because, well, because.

If you detect an undertone of snobbishness in the previous paragraph, that’s because any dissection of Britain’s dressing habits has to confront it. Britons may no longer betray their origins when they open their mouths (to adapt Shaw) but, by golly, nothing separates the Chelmsford girls from the Notting Hill set more definitively than a French manicure.

What Brits wear to party

Saturday night and it’s time to paint the town. We hits the streets to discover what you wear to clubs, bars and parties

Background

• How to get dressed: Because it’s worth it

• How to get dressed: tailoring

• How to get dressed: handling wet weather

• How to rock the coat this autumn

Yet even in matters of dress, old class distinctions are dissolving. A fascination with celebrity has united us all, and these days, even the younger generation of the Windsors seems to quite like the idea of dressing like the contestants on Strictly Come Dancing.

However, if you want to know how Middle England dresses, you need only visit Debenhams or Next, those redoubtable purveyors of a little bit of designer fashion mixed with rainbow racks of brightly coloured swimwear, wrap dresses, the beloved cardi and some distant relatives of Savile Row tailoring. These are the names that take the catwalks – or simply clothes – to the parts of Britain where Jigsaw or Whistles, with their boho-meets-slick-cutting aspirations, haven’t yet ventured. And then there’s the summer airport queue, where British laissez-faire reaches its zenith. Where complexions the colour of lobster and velour the colour of Barbie’s furniture jostle next to olive-skinned girls in headscarves and trainers. Where a thousand approximate copies of Posh’s last-but-one hair-do meet late middle-aged couples in navy gin’n’jag blazers and comfy greige summer frocks. Wouldn’t you hate to live somewhere bland?

Times recommends

• Babyboomers still partying on in their sixties
• Do I have a chance of finding love again?
• Video: How to do party make-up