As the days get shorter and the temps start to take a dip, summer will inevitably draw to a close and women will soon trade in their sundresses and bikinis for yoga pants and Uggs for the fall. The unofficial end of summer is marked on the calendar with Labor Day and the worst part of this holiday isn't that it brings the best season of the year to a close, it also marks the start of some odd style faux pas. These rules stem back to the 19th Century in an attempt to distinguish the new money from the old, one of the first iterations of the in-crowd/Mean Girls. I think its safe to safe that it's time to venture away from these "rules" and start experimenting with summer styles as transitional pieces into the fall.
For this shoot I utilized two different outfits to showcase some of the old faux pas, and how you can style them to keep on rocking your summer styles further into the year. And for those of us that are located in much warmer climates, these tips and tricks will be useful in helping us all take on the layered looks that comes with fall style. All photo cred goes to my girl Lauren LaRocque of LV Photography, she is a champ and awesome photographer!
White Jeans
Notice the airy white jeans are paired with earthy brogues.
The quintessential summer piece, white jeans brings an airy note to outfits like no other, but when worn properly, they can carry well into the fall. The goal here is to ground your white jeans with fall pieces like tweed or richer colors. With this look, most of the gravitas comes from the chunkier olive wingtips, but I get some added help from a classic brown-and-blue combination with my shirt and double-breasted blazer. Another piece to factor in is the weight of the denim. It doens't take a rocket scientist to figure out that a lighter weight twill denim will be much less hardy and that much less equipped to handle the same weather a heftier denim can; take it from me, there are all too many options to choose from, so don't be hasty in this buyers market. The one style of white denim that should be left in the closet until next summer are the jackets; there are plenty of amazing options out there for outerwear and jackets where the pants situation can tend to be a little too stuffy.
Florals
Brown, tan, olive, and shades of blue create the perfect fall floral.
Florals go hand-in-hand with warm weather, the April blooms signify the coming of spring and the end of frigid cold winter, but how do we translate this genre to transition between summer and fall? We do so by changing the color schemes and patterns from vibrant exuberance to earthy ruggedness, and nothing quite says earthy or rugged like brown. This shirt happens to be one of my favorites as it combines cooler tones like navy and olive with a muddy brown to create an unreal floral; the pattern itself ties back to a Victorian heritage, but the color scheme gives it a modern, youthful touch. With this option being short sleeved, I admit that it's life-cycle ends once the need for "real" layers sets in with the cold, so look for anything with long sleeves and just roll them up where needed. And as this style helps to blend your style from summer to fall, so will it help with the transition out of the cold and into the Spring come April, so keep those pieces handy!
Seersucker
Tweed adds some substance to the otherwise breathable seersucker.
Just a quick aside. I like to think of myself as a modern southern gentleman and when you consider that one of my first fashion purchases was a seersucker blazer, you'll figure out that I hold the puckered fabric very near and dear to my heart. The whole experience itself was a pseudo-baptism into Southern Style, becoming a significant influence of my style, ultimately fueling my swan dive into the fashion world altogether. Seersucker was truly the first performance fabric, popular throughout the south for the breathability that the textured fabric created, it was fabricated in everything from hats to full three-piece suits. However, classic color ways typically featured a pastel color and white or cream together, the epitome of airy vibes, but as of late there have been more options afforded to us that are worthy of post-Labor Day style. I'm talking the full tonal seersucker pieces that just forgo the bullshit of multiple colors and just rely on the texture of the fabric to tell its southern story, and the front runner for versatility is navy seersucker!
In this look I coupled a shirt and tie combo of matching navy seersucker (one of my guilty pleasures) to show the versatility and depth of what this fabric is capable of. For extending it into the colder months, I recommend layering in heavier elements, like a tweed waistcoat, to stifle any chill that may be in the air. As for bottom pairing, I opted for powder blue and white shorts simply cause it was 95 degrees out during that shoot, but this look could easily incorporate a distressed denim or slimmed down cargo pant to create a more fall appropriate look.
White Bucks
White Bucks are great for the summer, but work just as well with distressed jeans or slimmed-down cargos for the fall.
This piece harkens back to my aforementioned Southern Style influence, being the footwear option that pairs best with almost every summer look that doesn't involve the water. White suede bucks are the summer vacation to a much stuffier brown oxford shoe of ivy prep fame, usually lighter in construction and all the more wearable when the temperatures reach scorching. I found my pair at Johnston and Murphy, with a simple EVA outsole and extra comfortable padded sheepskin lining, creating a lighter look overall. Other options feature goodyear welted soles that add some weight to create a perfect early-fall shoe while streamlined constructions mean that they pair just as easily with your chalk stripe suit as they do in the pair of shorts I'm wearing. Pairing this style with the same rugged leg wear options that I alluded to in the previous section will help to create a more fall ready look, but also consider working in thicker socks in classic autumn colors to make them all the more fall-ready. My one tip is to go to a Michael's to pick up some white rubber erasers to keep the white suede crispy clean; the white rubber works just as well, if not better than any suede stone or professional cleaning product you can buy.
You will notice that I left out one of the key Spring/Summer fabrics and I did so for a reason. Linen is a miracle to anyone living south of the Mason-Dixon Line, simply lighter and more breathable than any other fabric, natural or manmade. Unfortunately, this reserves linen for the warm weather months almost exclusively. Wearing it while its still sunny after Labor Day is not a problem in my book, but once the cold begins to creep in, I recommend filing your linen into the spring storage box to make room for something new for the fall!
Feel is everything with seasonal shifts, so using your own climate and clothing situation is all that is required; don't think that because one guy is wearing wool in North Carolina, means you have to too. Executing this transition with grace is the toughest part, but using these techniques to incorporate some of your favorite summer pieces into your fall wardrobe should help make that grace slightly more attainable! Labor Day is almost here, so get prepared while you still can, and as always, Be Dapper and Different!