The Equestrienne: A Woman's Wardrobe from Burghley to Cheltenham

When the flat season takes its bow at the end of summer, British style does something quietly wonderful: it moves to the country. Burghley in the first week of September, the autumn county shows, then the long build to Cheltenham — a calendar that has dressed some of the most photographed women in Britain without a single red carpet. The equestrienne wardrobe is having its moment again (every glossy from Bazaar to ELLE has run the ‘horse girl autumn’ story), but it was never really away. Here is how Claudio Lugli does it: heritage shapes, insurgent prints.

The Riding Jacket, Reconsidered

Start with the silhouette the whole look hangs from. The Heritage Herringbone Riding jacket is cut long through the body with a flared skirt to the hem — the line of a show-ring coat, in an English herringbone that means it works over jeans at the horse trials and over a black dress in town. Its sister, the California Dogtooth, sharpens the same idea into a bolder check. These are the pieces that make the rest of the outfit look intentional.

California Dogtooth

£120

Signature Equestrian

£100

Azure Equestrienne

£100

The Prints of the Paddock

Underneath, the shirt carries the wit. The Snaffle Tie Dye takes the classic bit motif and pulls it through watercolour; the Ornate Horseshoe reads as a lucky charm at conversation distance and pure geometry across a field. For Burghley itself — four days of dressage, cross-country and shopping villages — the Elizabeth Horse Check layers horses over a heritage check so that two English languages speak at once. And the Galloping Horses print is for the woman who has decided that subtlety is for spectators.

Snaffle Tie Dye

£70

Ornate Horseshoe

£70

Galloping Horses

£70

Country, Not Costume

The field-sports seam runs deeper than horses. The Flying Pheasant print — game birds mid-flight across satin cotton — belongs at a shoot lunch or a market-town Saturday alike, and the pheasant family is the range's best-kept secret at £35 entry. The trick with country prints is the same as the city rule inverted: keep the setting quiet and let the print be the anecdote. Waxed jacket, dark denim, boots — and a shirt with a story.

The Calendar to Dress For

3–6 September: Defender Burghley Horse Trials — riding jacket over the Snaffle Tie Dye, boots you can walk a cross-country course in. 18–20 September: Goodwood Revival, which is its own universe entirely — we dress it decade by decade here. November into spring: the jumps season, Cheltenham's November Meeting through to the Festival — where the herringbone earns its keep and the horseshoe print becomes genuinely useful superstition. For the racing summer behind us, start with Ladies' Day at Glorious Goodwood.

Frequently Asked Questions