You remember that day? Last August. Twenty-six degrees and absolutely no clouds in the sky.
Beer garden day. The day where suddenly half your Facebook feed is inexplicably full of people you didn’t know had gardens, let alone barbecues? That one day of perfect, unadulterated British summer where you can finally bust out your linen shorts you bought from the John Lewis sale in a panic back in May?
Yeah, I went to a funeral that day. Full suit, black shoes.
Funeralled up in the crematorium car park making awkward conversation about how “well at least Aunt Margaret would have liked this weather”.
The universe is laughing at Britain every time it allocates us our seven-twelfths of good summer weather a year. Let’s start with tops. While the British summer may oscillate wildly between “chuck the heating on” and “why doesn’t Britain have air conditioning?? ?” inside offices and houses, outside we brave folk have to make do with shirts, jackets, and layering like experts. “Summer” in the UK is less of a defined season and more of a nice little window between mid-May and early September where we cross our fingers and hope that stuff we bought online in the sales in March will actually be appropriate to wear.
Illustration by Sophie Roe My friend Dave lives in Australia but flew over to visit me last July. His packing skills were akin to arson in Britain’s already struggling summer prospects. “Mate, it’s summer!” he messaged me before flying out to Heathrow. When I picked him up from the airport three days later he was wearing an actual sweatshirt from Uniqlo he’d obviously bought upon landing, jeans, and muttering complaints about “it’s false advertising this shit UK summer.” During that same week it hit 28 degrees for about two hours on Thursday lunchtime just long enough for every commuter sat on the tube/train to collectively roast alive before dropping back down to seventeen degrees and rain come Friday evening.
Mix that uncertainty with our fairly muted expectations of what British summer weather will actually be like and you end up with a real quandary on your hands – how do you dress in such a way that you’re respecting our low summer expectations but also being prepared to take full advantage when those precious hot days do decide to turn up, without looking like a complete lightweight who got suckered in by some sun? Starting from the top, the lightweight overshirt. Not a jacket, not quite a shirt.
It’s a sartorial Goldilocks moment perfectly calibrated for our pathetic excuse for summer. I’m talking about Universal Works’ Baker’s Overshirt in cotton twill here – it’s thin enough to not feel too much like wearing a winter jacket but gives you enough coverage to actually block a brisk breeze. And since yours truly is nothing if not redundant, I own it in three colours.
Easily takes me through about 80% of British “summer”. Underneath that I always advocate for high quality t-shirts. Nothing too thick that you couldn’t theoretically wear them alone on the hotter days (because trust me, they will happen) but not so thin that they look insubstantial when it’s cold.
Again, mine have become a Summer staple and tick that balance between being thick enough to hold their shape after years of abuse and washing, but not so thick that they feel uncomfortable riding the tube during that one random hot Wednesday in August when London’s transport network simultaneously melts. Speaking of trousers. Ah, British summer trousers.
Shorts are literally betting on yourself that summer will be adequate. But even then, there’s an art to shorts;too-short and you start looking like you’re auditioning for *NSYNC or off to study Geography at uni – or worse still, some weird mixture of both should it rain and you have to layer up with a jumper. Seven inches of inseam gets you enough length to pass for “summer-y” but short enough to avoid looking like a twat should you actually have to wear socks and trainers.
I’ve been buying Albam’s garment dyed twill shorts for years now; heavy enough to actually deal with a cool breeze but relaxed enough weave to let you breathe during legitimately hot days. Trousers need to autumn within the Goldilocks zone too. Too heavy and you’ll die a sweaty death riding the Northern line into work, too light and they’ll provide absolutely no insulation against the evening temperatures suddenly dropping fifteen degrees because some jerk sun decided to hide behind a cloud for half an hour.
Gap’s smart ankle length trousers or Universal Works’ pleated trousers are both great cotton number that hit that sweet spot. The ankle length is also just practical; should Summer decide to suddenly unleash one of it’s torrential downpours that cover every street with literal ponds you’ll at least be shielded from the brunt of the dirty Great British rain. Shoes.
Shoes may be the toughest summer conundrum of all. Pack too heavily into summer-appropriate shoes and you’ll will youself into rain. Dress too conservatively and you’ll sweat buckets should one of those weird heatwaves decide to grace us with its presence.
Like most of your summer wardrobe, the white trainer really is best saved for all year. Specifically, these Superga ones. They match with shorts and smart trousers equally well and are unbastardised enough to deal with the odd downpour without being ruined.
Shoe-game strong enough to work whether it’s sunny or raining, but not too strong that you look like you only packed that when you saw the forecast. Basically shoes so beta they don’t even realise it’s summer. Starting to feel smarter?
Fun fact about the British summer; it gets even more complicated when you decide you want to slightly up your shirt game. Working environments range from the Arctic-wasteland office spaces with pretend AC units blasting out air so cold it’ll take the skin off your legs, to downright baffling offices who actually have AC units and think cracking those open to “full blast” when it’s 25 degrees outside is an acceptable use of climate control. The navy wool suit that you wore religiously until about April now feels like a midwinter punishment by June, but that’s obvious copy pasta at this point.
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It’s summer’s obvious trouser counterpart – the full linen suit – that actually causes you headaches. Too breathable and it’ll crease like nobody’s business by the time you’ve been sat at your desk for two hours; not breathable enough and you’ll freeze your bollocks off whenever the sun deigns to hide for a bit. The workaround?
Linen jacket, non-linen trousers. Get yourself a lightweight cotton linen blend jacket (Massimo Dutti do pretty good ones these days if you’re not swimming in cash, Drake’s if you are) and a slightly more structured cotton number for the trousers and you’ll be able to mitigate the weather as it changes throughout the day; chuck the jacket over your shoulder, roll up the sleeves of your shirt you’re wearing underneath, chuck on an extra jumper if it gets colder. Feels roughly sixty million miles away from properly committing to that Mediterranean James Bond vibe of a full linen suit, sure, but way more versatile.
And on that shirt mention… Photo by Anna Karia on Unsplash The humble short sleeve shirt. We’ve come a long way from fast fashion SKUs mocking you from the GAP shelves, but we’re still not quite at the point where wearing a short sleeve shirt doesn’t immediately mark you as either a miserable middle-management IT guy or your dad wearing his Hawaiian shirt too early into the holidays.
If you do decide to embrace the sleeveless joys of summer shirts, please avoid the sort of Noah calendar-style print apocalypse of fun shirts everyone seems desperate to wear in the sun. Respect the season but don’t stupidly forecast its arrival. Opt for subtle prints or – dare I say it- textured solids (Folk, YMC and Portuguese Flannel do great ones) that let you channel summer without waving sarcastically at the clouds whenever it rains.
Layering. Something we Brits consider an Autumn/Winter forte can actually come in surprisingly handy during summer too. The key difference is in weight.
Summer layering should always be thin. Individual items that can easily be added or removed at will depending on whatever temperature freakery the skies have planned for you that day. That way, when evening comes around and the temp decides to drop five degrees the second your lunch break ends outside, you’ve got a thin jumper to throw on.
Something like John Smedley’s lightweight merino jumper is worth every penny for just those kinds of situations. Seriously, eye-wateringly expensive but if you treat it right it’ll last you a decade and can get you out of countless “what the fuck is the weather doing?” situations come summer. Photo by Bruce Mars on Unsplash Bright colours.
Ah yes, summer; the one time of year we’re allowed to wear colours that aren’t navy, grey or black. Sure, but do you really want to wear bright yellows and Hawaiian print shirts when it’s chucking it down with rain? My advice; opt for lighter tones of your normal colours instead of full-on embracing summer with both… tasteful?
Joggers? Work with me here. Swap your navy for a lighter blue, your charcoal for a stone or oatmeal colour, your black… well you get the point really.
That way you’ll still dress exactly like you do normally, but the slightly lighter tones will give a subtle summer-ish edge without looking completely ridiculous when the clouds open up. Speaking of slightly more British summer season-appropriate garments… Photo by Andrew Neel on Unsplash Packable jacket. Like most things in life, the best British summer jackets are ones that you don’t really need to wear.
The entire concept of a summer jacket in itself screams “why you bother? !” but much like carrying an umbrella around with you gives you a statistically better chance of not needing it, having a jacket you can compress down to about the size of a paperback means you’re always ready for those just-in-case scenarios. Whether that be Uniqlo’s ultralight down jacket for cooler summer evenings or something more sleek like a Rains or Norse Projects waterproof when it inevitably does decide to rain (and trust me, it will) you’ll thank yourself come those slightly cooler or windier days. It’ll probably still rain on you despite having one, sure, but at least you’ll have prepared as best you can.
Look, if there’s one thing I’ve learnt about dressing for British summer, it’s that it’s less about what you wear and more about how you view summer altogether. It’s about managing your expectations of what will and will not be supplied weather-wise each year, but still playing your Best Fish Olympics whilst you’ve got them. Yes you’ve got that nice linen shirt tucked away, and sure as shit you’ve still got that light jacket in your bag just in case.
Play the long game; August is usually when we get the bulk of our good weather.
And it’ll more than likely be over a weekend when you’re off work, swanning around town proving to all your friends how ridiculous your new summer gear is. Saturday.
The one day out of the year we’re pretty sure will actually deliver on its weather forecast, only to spend the rest of Sunday and all of Monday crying inside wishing it would somehow magically come back. But then. Then that one day comes around.
That blessed, amazing day where everything lines up; the weather app was wrong, your office doesn’t have air con, and you’re wearing shorts and a linen shirt. Take that day, roll around in it. You’ve earned it.
And then once September rolls around and it’s shit-weather again, we’ll start again. Back at the stuffy office thermostat roulette. Staring longingly out of the window at the delusional fools pretending to play football in their Hawaiian shirts and laughing at them because you’ve got layers, bastards.
