| Hello! I’m Liz Angell, an editor here on the Pursuits team. Lately, for rather obvious reasons, I’ve been thinking about summer style. Specifically, why I find it such a challenge. I suppose some of my struggle boils down to a yawning gap between expectation and reality. Summer is meant to be our most fun season. It’s the time of year we associate with freedom: fewer obligations, more escapes. It’s also, at least on paper, our sexiest season: hot weather, languid nights, exposed skin—you get the idea. Reality, however, is a different story. I still have the same number of obligations in July as I do in November, so I spend most of my days in an office and plenty of hours riding the reliably unsexy New York City subway. I love many things about summer—longer days, excellent produce, more time spent outside in the sun and the water—but I wouldn’t say I feel more free or more fun. So it’s hard to channel that feeling into my clothes. Summer dress propaganda is so ubiquitous this time of year that it becomes hard to resist. “All of the brands that you rely on in the fall and winter do this hard pivot to flowy summer clothes,” says Laurel Pantin, a Los Angeles-based stylist and fashion editor who writes one of my favorite newsletters, Earl Earl. “That’s what sells.” But summer dresses can be deceptively difficult to wear. They’re the perfect example of a garment that suffers from a mismatch between expectation and reality. “Flowy” fabric ends up feeling limp and excessively voluminous. If it’s linen, it wrinkles; if it’s silk, it stains (and wrinkles). Florals too often feel juvenile, as do puff sleeves and eyelet details (God forbid).  Pantin in a dress that’s voluminous but not flowy. Source: @laurelpantin/Instagram What to do instead? For her part, Pantin doesn’t wear many dresses. But if she does indulge, she gravitates toward cotton poplin, which has a bit more structure, and chooses “solids in slightly ‘off’ colors,” she says, such as mustard yellow, plum and a bright orangey red. “Or if it’s a print, it’s a gingham or a stripe.” Another challenge is that I can’t rely on my usual sartorial tricks when getting dressed. In the cooler months, if an outfit isn’t quite coming together, I’ll add another layer. My favorite garments are coats, jackets and scarves. In the summer, I just have to try a different shirt. Summer clothes are under a lot of pressure to work harder—they have to be good enough to stand on their own. Irene Kim, a Toronto-based stylist who writes an excellent newsletter called In Moda Veritas, knows the struggle. “A lot of my clients have more trouble with summer dressing,” she says. “All you have is a top and a bottom. Those two elements are going to carry a lot of weight. They have to make an impact.” Too often, Kim sees people rely on basic layering items—T-shirts and tanks, loose drawstring pants—that don’t pack much punch on their own. “You have to look for pieces with interesting shapes, proportions or details,” she says. Shoes, she adds, are a prime way to add interest. “A crazy Balenciaga shoe can totally change the direction of the outfit.”  Kim’s top and pants both feature an eye-catching cut or proportion. Source: @irene_kf/Instagram For LA-based stylist Mecca Cox, the key to making sure basic summer pieces are interesting is to balance the masculine and the feminine. “You always want to think about juxtaposition,” she says. You’ll frequently find her in a men’s dress shirt and tailored trousers, worn with a pair of ballet flats or strappier sandals. I like this approach because it feels like an equation. A summer outfit might have two primary elements (a dress and shoes) or three (a top, a bottom and shoes), and you create balance when at least one is headed in a menswear direction if the other skews feminine. The contrast can also be created with proportion—something loose on top paired with something fitted on the bottom—or vice versa. The tension is what keeps a relatively simple outfit from being boring. | 
