By Michelle Crowe
Our favorite Johanna Ortiz blouse, an ultra-cool take on seersucker.
How rigorously should one adhere to the guidelines about when to wear what? I know, many have declared the rules surrounding seasonal fabrics passé, advising to wear what suits a person’s style. Certainly, most of us take a common sense approach to modern dressing. White jeans, for instance, have become a jet-set staple, as they look as sharp with a charcoal cashmere sweater off-season as they do with an eyelet top in high summer. That same cashmere sweater might make a summertime appearance at a beach bonfire topping shorts or even a swimsuit, but the eyelet blouse would look ridiculous and raise eyebrows in December.
Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch in a publicity photo from To Kill a Mockingbird.
I’ll always remember when I put on a pair of spectator pumps in early March and my sorority alumna advisor gently mentioned that I should change them because they weren’t allowed until Easter. We were just a few days away and in a warm climate, but she held tightly to the old school rules.
Rainbow of seersucker suits.
It’s these weeks between Easter and Memorial Day when things become a bit tricky. Take seersucker as an example. Some say Easter is the kickoff for the season, while others, especially in northern climes, stick to the Memorial Day guideline.
Surely, if today turns out to be warm, we’ll see some puckered cotton make an appearance, likewise Derby Day in a couple of weeks when it will just feel right to see the gentlemen in their seersucker jackets, bow ties and bucks.
A dapper chap wears Oscar de la Renta.
With time, place and occasion guiding sartorial decisions, most of us get it right most of the time, and when we periodically miss, we can chalk it up to either an extreme belief in our own sense of style or a moment of weakness when we just couldn’t wait one minute longer to wear a favorite frock.
Enjoy your warm weather favorites, and wear them well because Labor Day comes around all too quickly.
No. 21 takes the puckered fabric in an unconstructed direction for resort 2017.
