I have lived in the Cotswolds for more than 15 years. Our neck of the woods (between Chipping Norton and Tetbury) boasts more billionaires than any other. So when I was sent a copy of Plum Sykes’ new novel, satirising the super-rich Cotswolds set, I dived straight in, hoping to recognise the real-life rich wives on which she might have based her characters.
You get the idea of the sort of people Sykes is describing within the first line, thanks to the luxury brand namedrops. Ian Palmer, an executive butler, wears Elemis Man Le Tinte moisturiser. The three principal wives of Wives Like Us, who live in the fictitious enclave of Bottoms, do nothing, it seems, but shop on Net A Porter, pop into Daylesford (name-dropped 16,000 times) and prepare their bodies for holidays in Lamu by jetting off to the Lanserhof (shoehorned in within the first two pages).
Our main wife is Tata Hawkins, who lives in a new-build manor on the Monkton Bottom Estate (Chipping Norton-ish) and is married to Bryan, a newly-minted IPO-rich CEO of “Plugs n Stuff”. The other wives, Sophie (married to a dodgy politico – shades of David Cameron), Fernanda and new American divorcée Selby Fairfax, also reside in the made-up county and seem to waft between school runs (in the back of chauffeur-driven cars) to Stowe School and village fetes. They wear their best jewellery at all times and appear at the door of their listed houses in full Hermes and this season’s £400 designer sunglasses. Trunk shows are the highlight of their week.
According to Sykes, life in the Cotswolds is one giant Vogue fashion photo shoot with dotted references to real places and shops. The truth, of course, is that no one in the Cotswolds uses a florist (they have their own huge cutting gardens) or goes to Daylesford – that’s what people who don’t live in the Cotswolds do.
Actual rich wives of the Cotswolds fall into two camps: those who really live in London but pretend to be landed squires on the weekends and holidays by donning the appropriate NON-designer clothes (tweeds and wellies for dog walks) and those who actually live there full-time and have never heard of an executive butler or Elemis Man for that matter.
I have been in the houses of some of the finance world’s biggest hedge fund players and have only ever spotted live-in Polish/Romanian couples who cook, clean and garden. The masters of the universes may have drivers to take them to the City in London, but they are very much in command of their own dirty four by fours on weekends (according to Sykes, no one drives themselves). Gardeners tend to double up as caretakers/handymen, although the best will not work for part-timers. One famously quit when his estate- owning employer told him they were spending the summer in France.
The women who actually live in the Cotswolds have distinct attributes. They favour a uniform of floral summer dresses with cropped coloured sweaters and espadrilles (no Gucci anywhere), which could even be Boden. They are not groomed, coiffed or manicured: they do not go to Barre classes; they have never been to the Lanserhof (they think it’s a ski resort). Lamu is where the London fashion set go; they summer in Greece.
On any given day, they’ll either be playing bridge, sitting on top of a horse on the hunt, gardening or running some charity event for a local cause that consumes a great deal of their time. Work is something they did in their twenties, probably at Sotheby’s.
They entertain every single Saturday. Dinner parties are what the week is spent getting ready for. Many of the wives I know do the cooking themselves (someone “rented” clears up). The odd Cassandra Goad necklace might come out paired with something velvet and maybe even a pair of Roger Viviers they found in a vintage designer store (this is where they really shop). Of course, any of these women could afford Bond Street, but it’s not really the done thing.
Their children go to private schools such as Beaudesert. Stowe is the lowest rank; their children go to Marlborough, Eton or Winchester – but they do the school run themselves. Nannies are not very keen on country life. They employ women from the local council estates to muck in.
Our poshest “Gloustocracy” aristocratic friends live in ho-hum houses. What one doesn’t know is that they happen to also own the village and all thousands of farmed acres around it.
Dress-wise, one does spot the odd 2018 Prada shoes and Ralph Lauren skirt. Some wives deck themselves out but they’re seldom English. This is the point of the country. You fit in and do not insult your less wealthy neighbours with your spoils.
The rich of the Cotswolds are a fairly new invention, having started buying properties after the first banking boom in the 80s (celebrities followed). Yes, there are still old families with large estates, who don moth-eaten sweaters and can hardly afford to heat their homes, but the Cotswolds of today is manicured because its new residents brought London standards with them. The locals, who have been priced out by the new influx, are often resentful. Hence the fact that when the Cotswold-pretend wives, married to bankers, hedge fund managers and rock producers arrive from London on Thursday evenings, they immediately remove their designer wardrobes in favour of something “used” that fits in.
One new tech billionaire resident has had to hire a PR to work out how to get along with the villagers. When he sought planning permission for a giant new scheme, he rapidly discovered who was in charge.
Having had to rely several times on local farmers to rescue me from angry cows who stormed our garden, I know that fitting in is how you survive socially. That means putting on the same filthy Schöffel rain-proof jacket that everyone else wears, even though it’s sprouting mould.
Actually, I think Sykes’ book is about wives of the Hamptons. Were the book based there, I might even commend it for its accuracy. Though it’s great fun, I think it’s a hodgepodge of luxury consumer clichés that bears no resemblance to the world of wives I know.