Hot to go: workwear for the summer

Surviving the heat in bussiness casual

Jun 12, 2025

Dressing for summer is hard because you can’t just “add another thing” on top to make your outfit more interesting. It can be even harder to dress for a corporate environment where you have a certain dress code to follow that usually requires a lot of covering-up. When you can’t fathom the idea of one more piece of clothing touching your body, what do you do?

Well, that’s what I’ll attempt to answer today by sharing some lessons I’ve learned from a lifetime of tropical heat.

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1. Go big or go home

This is about scale.

When you have a small room, most people would think to add small things in order to “fit the scale”. However, when we talk about interior design, it’s actually the other way around: the bigger the better. Of course you won’t put an eight-person dining table in your living room if all that fits is a simple corner table, but the bigger the items you manage to fit in your space, the bigger it feels. Think of it as tipping the scale the other way - you have small, now add big.

The same goes for clothes. It’s summer, it’s unbearably hot, and, even if you have to leave your air conditioning for only 5 minutes between your home and the car/subway, you want to be wearing as little clothing as possible (and still be office appropriate). How do you do that? Tip the scale. Little clothes = big accessories.

Allison Bornstein talked about this in one of her posts, where she says that adding a big bag can add a lot of interest to your outfit in the summer. This applies not only to big bags, but also any big accessory you can think of: big sunglasses, big shoes, big jewelry.

Huge bags, stacks of bracelets, big eyewear, chunky shoes, statement earrings

Some accessories are things you wear the whole day, like shoes and jewelry, but others you usually peel off when getting to your destination. You don’t walk around the office holding your bag or wearing your sunglasses, so for your outfit to hold its own the whole day and not just during your comute, those can’t be the only things adding interest.

2. Layering wihout layering

A way to add visual interest to the outfit itself so it’ll hold out throughout the day is through layering. But how does one add layers without adding more clothes? You add things that aren’t clothes.

Something as simple as wearing your hair in a different way or with an accessory can already make the outfit more visually appealing.

Adding jewelry is an obvious one but it needs to be said. When wearing a particularly “little” outfit, you can layer jewelry or wear a bigger piece, like I talked about in item 1, to make it more interesting.

Jewelry, as little or as much as you want it, just as long as it's done intentionaly

Don’t forget about belts! They not only add another layer to your outfit but can also add texture through their size, style and material: woven leather, patterns, colors, metals and other embellishments.

Another great way to layer without more clothes is through scarves, especially silk ones, which is the most summer friendly fabric. Scarves aren’t for everyone, but even if you don’t feel comfortable wearing them on your body (or if it’s too hot for even silk to be touching your skin), consider tying them around your waist as a belt or with a simple little tie around your belt loop, around your bag (Hermès Twiggy style or just as a little tie/bow), or on your hair.

3. Pieces that are individually interesting

It all comes down to what I said at the beggining: when you strip down to the outfit you actually walk around in all day, is it still interesting? Putting accessories aside, can your clothes hold up on their own?

They can, if they’re interesting enough.

What I mean is, if you’re not going to accessorize a ton, maybe don’t put on a basic white T-shirt. Instead, opt for something that is different, be it through shape, color or print, either on the top or on the bottom.

Interesting and sculptural tops, prints, bold colors

4. Keeping it light: breathable materials and light items

This means no knits, absolutely no cashmere and as little synthetic materials as possible. Your best allies when it comes to summer fabrics will be linnen and cotton, which are the ones that allow for the most breathability. However, 100% linnen items crease very easily, and you probably don’t want to show up to a meeting all crumpled up, nor do you have the time to steam your clothes when you get home at the end of the day. So I would advise you to look for clothes made out of a mixture between linnen and either cotton or a lightweight synthetic material like viscose (a 70 to 30% ratio should be good), which will prevent it from creasing so much.

A lot of linnen and cotton. The outfits feel lightweight even through photos.

Not only does this work for lighter fabrics, but also for lighter items like skirts, tank tops and vests. You don’t have to wear pants everyday, there are plenty of work-appropriate skirts out there. And, if your workplace allows for shoulders to be showing, tank tops and vests made from those soft materials are great options.

Tank top (notice how the belt and bag help make the outfit), linnen vest (with a rafia bag for more texture) and skirt (pleated, combined with two different prints for a alot of texture)

5. When in doubt, add texture

Throughout all of these steps, texture can be found and explored. Your big bag could be of a rafia or woven leather material, adding that organic feel to your look, it could be a textured leather like snakesin and crocodile or it could have extra embellishments like fringes (adding charms can also have the same effect!).

Bags with so much texture they're the entire look

Your skirt or your top could be pleated, adding not only interest, but also movement to the outfit.

Wearing a vest? Why not look for one with different buttons, or even having the original buttons removed and replaced by something more unique?

Are you a prints person? Good! Use it! Are you not a prints person? Maybe you just have’t found the right one for you - explore with more muted patterns like animal print, stripes, polka-dots and chekered prints.

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