Timeless Summer Essentials

Keeping it simple to savor the season

I updated this story, posted a year ago, and still stand behind the premise of it, keeping it simple with classic pieces in colors of the season. That’s what I love about timeless style, it’s still great a year or years later. I’ve revised the recommendations and found a couple of special additions that weren’t available last year. Thanks for reading, and I wish you a joyous long weekend!

Summer is as much a feeling as it is a season. The days are blissfully long, and everything seems to slow down to a more human pace. We build into the season time to travel and have extended visits with family and friends. With the Fourth of July upon us, the summer is in full swing, and already I feel it passing too quickly. To savor every minute, I like to simplify everything and live in the moment, cliché as it sounds.

I’m spending next week with close friends and family at the sleepy New Jersey beach town where my family has a long history. It’s delightfully low-key. No fancy Hamptons vibe here, and not a designer shop on the whole Island. Packing protocol calls for summer essentials for long days on the beach, walks to the vegetable stand, and sunset cocktails before dinners cooked at home. For me, this is heaven!

This got me thinking of what the essence of summer boils down to in a packing list. As always, it starts with a feeling. I recall happy memories of summers past, watching my daughters grow up at this beach. It was never about what designer you were wearing or what bag you carried, as is too often the case in the city. That kind of validation currency does not apply there. Letting that go is liberating. Keeping it simple is the mandate.

To flesh this out, I created mood boards in my favorite summer color palette, which happens to coincide with the colors of July 4th. I could easily get through the entire summer wearing only white, navy, and splashes of red.

Nothing says summer more than head-to-toe white. If I had to pick just one color to wear all summer, hands down it would be white. Notice how basic all the pieces are on the board. Most of the photos are from the 1960s and ‘70s, yet each one could step right into the present and look completely current and chic. I think a lot of clothes today are overdesigned with too many unnecessary details in loud prints. That’s fine sometimes, but the theme here today is keeping it simple.