3 Steps to a Better Summer Wardrobe

Published on July 8, 2026

Authored by Toby Standing

MYTHERESA

This guide for the fashion-fluent has been created as part of a paid partnership, with all products hand-picked by our editorial team. We make a commission on the sale of these products.

Every summer, we collectively decide this is the year we'll become a completely different person.

A linen shirt appears, and suddenly you're convinced you'll spend August drifting between seaside restaurants with a paperback tucked under your arm. A pair of leather sandals whispers Italian holiday, despite the fact you'll mostly be wearing them to the supermarket air con and back. Then there's the camp collar shirt: loud enough to stop traffic, worn exactly once, and then banished to the wardrobe where it patiently waits for another annual rejection.

Yes, summer has an incredible ability to make us buy into a fantasy.

The irony is that the people who always look good in the heat rarely have the loudest wardrobes. They're not chasing the shirt of the summer or whatever social media has decided is the sandal; they've simply assembled a wardrobe where everything pulls in the same direction. Nothing feels like it's trying too hard, because nothing has to.

Good summer style is surprisingly simple on paper — and it looks effortless in practice. Here are three steps to a better summer wardrobe.

RALPH LAUREN

Let the Fabrics Show Off

Every year someone declares sky blue is over, pistachio green is in, or rose butter is having a moment. Blink and you've apparently missed the ‘it color’ memo. But none of it matters half as much as texture.

A linen shirt that wrinkles like it's got stories to tell. Open-knit cotton catching the evening breeze. Soft seersucker that surprisingly holds its shape after twelve hours outside. Dry, chalky suede footwear that somehow still feels appropriate in thirty-degree heat. When everything is fighting to be colorful, texture becomes the thing your eye actually lands on. The easiest way to make simple clothes look more exciting isn't buying louder ones, but by choosing pieces that are more tactile.

MYTHERESA

Shop for Side Characters

Too many wardrobes are built around a singular item. The trousers that only work with that shirt. The statement knit that demands everyone else keep quiet. The loafers that somehow require a completely different personality to the trainers sitting next to them.

The thing is, the best clothes have a healthy sense of teamwork. So instead of asking whether something looks good on its own, ask whether it'll happily spend time with the other twenty things you already own. Can that striped shirt work over swim shorts? Under tailoring? Half-buttoned with linen trousers? Can those loafers survive an entire day of wandering without becoming medieval torture devices? The less precious your clothes are, the more you'll actually wear them.

Ironically, the most versatile wardrobes also end up looking the most cohesive, because you're not constantly forcing pieces into situations they were never designed for.

RALPH LAUREN

Dress for Off-Script Days

The best summer days never stay where they started. You leave the house for a coffee. Someone suggests lunch. Lunch accidentally develops into an early dinner. Before you know it, you're sat outside at half ten in the evening wondering whose idea this was and quietly thanking yourself for bringing a knit.

That's the real test of a wardrobe: not whether it survives a holiday photo, but whether it keeps up with a day that refuses to stick to the itinerary.

Building your summer wardrobe around elements like relaxed tailoring, knitwear light enough to sling over your shoulders, and loafers that can survive cobbles, parks, train stations, and whatever else your day throws at you is key. The best summer wardrobes never look like they've been styled with purpose, more like life just happened in them. And that's usually the difference. Anyone can put together a good outfit, but building a wardrobe that keeps delivering from May through September without demanding your full attention is the real trick.

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