For a few minutes, summer feels like a golden blessing. It’s such a joy to put away my heavy black and gray sweaters and skirts, to toss my tights in a bin, to put my boots in the storage closet.
Foreboding governess no longer, I take off my socks and enjoy a moment of sweet freedom from the cold, forgetting the sartorial battle ahead. In the summertime, we are free to frolic in lighter, skimpier clothing – at least theoretically. The “freedom” of summer dressing actually entails convoluted schemes, snaps, layers and yards of beige stretch fabric – not exactly liberating.
It begins anew each ever-hotter, ever-more-humid morning when I think about what to wear. Each small choice kicks off a flowchart with nothing but humiliating outcomes. For example: I would like to wear this shirt. But this shirt is too sheer, requiring another shirt be worn beneath it. But I own a nude cami; I’m in good shape.
Except that nude camis, besides being called by two of the most revolting words in the English language, don’t do the job of a bra. Doubling up on a bra and cami seems ludicrous. Also, nude camis ride up, revealing my belly and leaving me with a gross, fleshy-but-not-flesh roll around my midsection. Not to mention that 99% of appalling “nude” garments only apply to white women, leaving women of color with whole other sets of summer attire conundrums.
Regardless of sheerness issues, my shirts are bound to be sleeveless because of hotness issues, but that leaves me at the mercy of a bra-strap struggle and possibly inappropriately bare shoulder issues. So I need to have a cardigan or jacket handy.
Maybe I’ll wear some pants with my sheer summer shirt and occasional cardigan? I would, except that presents some serious underwear issues. Why are fabrics so thin or clingy that they encourage a not-sexy underwear show anyway? There is a unicorn that is majority-cotton underpants that don’t show under clothing and also don’t cost $30 apiece. I’ll keep on searching for those Underpants of Gold, or Nude, as the case may be.
I settle on a dress with a “shorts slip” underneath. Which is another gross nude garment. It resembles bicycle shorts or a girdle but isn’t. It’s a kind of loose-ish synthetic pair of small bloomers to keep the dress from sticking to me and possibly guard against dress-flips, but it would probably be less mortifying to show my underpants than this terror. Also, I must wear cotton undies under it. Bright side: at least it’s not a cami.
Then there’s summer footwear. Flats seem like they should be comfortable, but they’re really not for the most part. And they require nude sock liners, because women also get sweaty feet, which are exacerbated by wearing shoes socklessly.
If the sock liners correctly don’t show over the top of the shoe, they tend to be so small that one will always slip off of my foot, and end up bunched underneath, leaving me waiting for a moment of privacy where I can remove the crumpled item, which resembles a byproduct of some lab-grown human meat experiment gone awry. It must be held with index finger and thumb and quickly stuffed in my handbag, to lie in revolting wait until I get home, put it in with my laundry and never see it again.
I recently saw hosiery that is made to somehow not cover your toes. So that you can wear stockings and “peep toe” (another B-league icky adjective) shoes. I don’t know if I will ever want to do that, but I can breathe easy knowing that there is at least one answer to one of my summer apparel struggles going into the season.
Truly, I could continue to talk about this for thousands of pages. I won’t, but a few other relevant items warrant mention. For starters: the hair on my head. On a good day, it might exhibit a sort of “Olsens with air-dried (yet heavily styled) waves”. During the summer we’re deep into Eunice Kennedy Shriver territory. My hair is large, frizzy, having its own struggle against my futile efforts to make it “presentable”.
“Cut it short,” you might say. I won’t do that. It fell out this one time and thus it is a great treasure and source of comfort to me. Besides, what’s wrong with Eunice Kennedy Shriver hair other than the fact that no one thinks it’s a good look? There’s also the hair on my legs, and the skin on my legs and whole body, which is, generously, Warhol-tan. There’s a hat, which I wear during all outdoor occasions as part of my cancer-avoiding efforts, but which makes me look like I’m trying too hard to be adorable.
I would like to design my own summer dresses which would be made of a good, sturdy pique or poplin or even certain poly-cotton blends. They would have pockets and come with matching fabric belts. They wouldn’t be too tight or too baggy, and would machine-wash like champs. These dresses would have structure. They would be considerate enough to not require layers of undergarments.
Barring that, I’m voting for Elizabeth Taylor caftans and turbans to become acceptable office wear. And I look forward to autumn. when I can simply get dressed.
