Summer style...how do you keep it when the heat kicks up?

[tnjyoung]

I have no problem with this look... if it's by some body of water (including a pool)

Lol! And point taken.

 

[Seb Lucas]

I have to ask - do any guys here/would they be brave enough (or whatever) to wear a pith helmet in public?

No. A wide brimmed hat provides better protection against the sun without the unfortunate colonial overtones. Unless you're in a Marx Bros skit or re-enacting Gunga Din....

 

[nihil]

I have no problem with this look... if it's by some body of water (including a pool)

Do you use such shorts to bathe in?

 

[dudewuttheheck]

Do you use such shorts to bathe in?

Well when I bathe, I am typically naked. That seams to allow me to clean myself better.





...but I suppose you mean swimming. When I say pool, I mean a backyard pool so usually a party or BBQ context. If you are swimming, you would just wear trunks, right?
My point is that that look is a preppy/boating/beach look in my eyes. I live 20 minutes from the beach, but that is too far to wear that outfit in my city under normal (even if very hot) circumstances.

 

[tropicalbob]

No. A wide brimmed hat provides better protection against the sun without the unfortunate colonial overtones. Unless you're in a Marx Bros skit or re-enacting Gunga Din....

When I was leaving the house one day recently and wearing my VS straw, my son stopped me and said, "Uh, Dad, that Django look's really gonna fly in North Miami." Then he showed me a photo on his phone of (I think) Don Johnson wearing almost exactly the same outfit I was sporting, same goatee, same linen shirt, same hat. And I never saw the film!

 

[nihil]

...but I suppose you mean swimming.

No, I meant bathing, as in the British English use of the term.


What I don't get, is why you would wear shorts to the beach, but not for wearing them in the water, and yet, won't wear them in the city, where they are also not used for being in the water.
But perhaps it's just myself that are not stuck up enough, as to limit myself to certain types of clothing for various activities.

 

[dudewuttheheck]

No, I meant bathing, as in the British English use of the term.


What I don't get, is why you would wear shorts to the beach, but not for wearing them in the water, and yet, won't wear them in the city, where they are also not used for being in the water.
But perhaps it's just myself that are not stuck up enough, as to limit myself to certain types of clothing for various activities.

The reason why I think it is OK to wear shorts to the beach even if you re not bathing is that if you are on the sand or on the docks or on a boat, there is a better than likely chance that you will get wet or sandy or both. If you wear shorts, they likely won't get as wet or dirty because they aren't as long.

However, I would personally just wear swim trunks to any of those places because I would plan on getting wet there.

I wouldn't call it stuck up, just an opinion that shorts look stupid. I'm not saying it is a law. If people want to wear shorts around town, they can... I will think they look ridiculous, but that is my opinion. I don't think there is anything wrong with that. I own a pair of 26oz jeans. A lot of people probably think I am an idiot for wearing them and I don't blame them for that opinion.

 

[EliasRDA]

Okay, I'm sorry some of you do not like the look of men in shorts, no matter what type. Heck, its your opinion & you are entitled to such. But I will wear my shorts, the type that are twill/khaki type material & end right about the top of my knee so maybe a 9" inseam. I wear them with polos (trying to avoid them though now) or a short sleeve collared shirt (co-pilot or pilot style, not button down) & leather shoes. I don't do the boat shoe look or sandals since I'm diabetic & my foot doc forbade them.

Where I am at it gets steamy about may & continues up through Sept usually, and I'm not in the best of shape but at least the shorts cover the worst of my "issue" I don't do the jean shorts anymore, & full pants even khaki type tend to have me breaking out in rashes or dropping from heat stress which I am prone too due to my past. I've tried the jeans but that was worse than the khakis. It may have worked when I grew up in CT in the 70's & was a kid but no way now, no way no how. If I was in Colorado or upstate NY/PA maybe but not the steamy mid atlantic.

I will not do the pith helmet, was given one when I worked for the USPS & ditched it for a tan boonie hat instead. My PO PM hated that but he couldn't stop it, least I didn't do the "chocolate chip" or tricolor boonie I still had from desert storm/shield. LOL
I am thinking about a duelist but still have my panama from Ha'waii so I can top it with that instead.

So, sorry but I'll keep my twill/khaki shorts until I can get some decent linen pants that do not break my bank. Even then on the 100%/90+ days I'll still wear my shorts most likely.

 

[Gin&Tonics]

I have to ask - do any guys here/would they be brave enough (or whatever) to wear a pith helmet in public?

I think there are a few ways you could get away with it. Firstly, you'd have to be on some kind of adventure in the wilderness, like perhaps if you were off doing a summer hike in the mountains or a river canoeing expedition or something, and you'd have to have one heck of an awesome outfit to go with it, and probably some vintage style adventure gear as well. If you had a legit reason for wearing it, such as adventuring, then I think you could pull it off.

 

[Gin&Tonics]

He means the classic shellacked straw hat. Once a very common item, now more in the realm of costume in most places.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boater

The line between clothing and costume is measured in sincerity and panache.

 

[Edward]

When it gets hot enough, only a fool doesn't wear shorts.

Or people who don't want skin cancer, or people who want to trap a layer of cooling airf between their trews and their skin, or....

I take inspiration in part from desert peoples who live in extremes of temperature most of us will never see. They cover themselves up from the harmful rays of the Sun, and don't seem to have the melanoma rates of those who do not. In my case it's as much as I hate the feel of the Summer sun directly on my skin, and I don't like to tan. Never liked shorts, though. Haven't owned a pair in decades; I think my last pair, which got worn maybe half a dozen times at most, were bought when I was sixteen. Nothing to do with climate - I just hated wearing them. I associate them with school games "lessons" and childrenswear, though it's all culturally relative. Used to be very rare indeed to see a grown man in short trousers on the hottest day where I'm from, though that's changed with subsequent generations.

I quite like a short-sleeved shirt for causal wear in the Summer (even better if I can still fit a lighter leather or other jacket over it), though if I'm wearing a suit and tie, it's always long sleeves. Trousers tend to be cotton or such.... I don't feel the need to vary the weight for the Summer (though with suits it's linen all the way, the heavier the better) - though I do tend towards lighter colours in Summer. Co-respondant shoes. I don't own any trainers / gym shoes or such, though I do sometimes wear saddle shoes in Summer the way I might at one time have worn a pair of AllStars. Cotton or linen jackets instead of wool. Cotton or linen caps in place of tweed, and straw hats (boaters, fedora-shapes, porkpies). With a suit I'll sometimes wear a pair of cotton or lambskin gloves to help keep the Sun off my hands if I'm outside all day.

BTW, American soldiers wear paints.

Like this guy?

Certainly significant that modern militaries all seem to have moved far away from issuing short trousers, now we're much more well aware of skin cancers and such that are caused by sun exposure. Turns out the simple desert peoples were onto something all along.

I don't wear shorts for the same reason I avoid Panama hats -- they're not my style. If I were to entertain ancestral considerations, I'd be walking around Miami in a kilt. Hmm, linen kilts anyone?

There's a good reason kilts need to be heavy. Especially if you're more traditionally oriented...

I dream of a climate like that. . . .

It's not all it's cracked up to be. I live in London, and July and August are unbearably hot most years. The idiots you always see on the local news, every year, saying "If this is global warming, let's have more of it!" are one reason I'm not allowed to carry a gun.

I'm in kind of the same boat. I just don't look good in shorts. My legs are muscular, very, but thin by my standards. The last thing I want to do is show those when I go in public -- unless I'm working out.

I'm the opposite, really - I've never given a damn what other people might think of how I look; it's simply that I don't like how I would look in short trousers, and have no practical use for them.

I've never worn shorts as an adult. To me they are boy's wear. And besides ,jeans protect your legs from the sun. I cover up as much as possible - long sleeves, hat, etc, in summer.

Agreed. Health-wise, staying as much out of the sun as possible is the only sensible option.

I have to ask - do any guys here/would they be brave enough (or whatever) to wear a pith helmet in public?

Probably if I had a practical use for it. Hiking in the Summer, maybe. Always preferred the boater, though, for style.

The line between clothing and costume is measured in sincerity and panache.

Bravo!

 

[GHT]

or wife beater shirt:......

:rofl:

 

[GHT]

When it's seriously hot, I wear light blazers. Pinstripe, pastel blue and white is my favourite. My wife picked open the lining at the bottom of the jacket and sewed a few weights in there, makes the blazer hang like a heavy garment. Match it with cream oxford trousers, made in linen or heavy duty cotton, spectator or conference shoes and a panama/fedora. My shirt will inevitably be one of the many tropical style ones that my wife makes for me. I wear the shirt collar over the blazer collar. If the heat is insufferable the style looks just as good without the blazer.

One thing I always do though, is to wear an old, wornout, white t-shirt underneath. It might be an extra layer but it does prevent the wet underarm look. The t-shirt absorbs the sweat without transferring it to the shirt.

 

[Edward]

When it's seriously hot, I wear light blazers. Pinstripe, pastel blue and white is my favourite. My wife picked open the lining at the bottom of the jacket and sewed a few weights in there, makes the blazer hang like a heavy garment. Match it with cream oxford trousers, made in linen or heavy duty cotton, spectator or conference shoes and a panama/fedora. My shirt will inevitably be one of the many tropical style ones that my wife makes for me. I wear the shirt collar over the blazer collar. If the heat is insufferable the style looks just as good without the blazer.

One thing I always do though, is to wear an old, wornout, white t-shirt underneath. It might be an extra layer but it does prevent the wet underarm look. The t-shirt absorbs the sweat without transferring it to the shirt.

Good idea on the weighting!

Agreed regarding the second point, too; I've been wearing an undershirt year round for severla years now (a tip I picked up on here). The difference it makes in extremes of heat (I've been in near 40C in India and no far off it in China in the Summer) is really quite something. I also noticed last June, on a work trip to Singapore with a large group of colleagues, the Greeks and those from hotter climates originally all did the same... (Re short trousers, that was a dead giveaway someone was a tourist. None of the local seemed interested).

 

[tropicalbob]

The problem with t-shirts is that they are an extra layer of clothing, which I find intolerable in tropical heat. Much preferable are light-colored rayon shirts, 1950's style with the collars that lie flat. We used to get wonderful ones from little Italian shops in N.Y., the kind with two-toned darts and piping, and I wish I could find someone who makes them today.

 

[tropicalbob]

Question for GHT: wouldn't the weighting cause the garments to lay flat against the skin, thereby cutting off any flow of air? I almost always, in more acceptable weather, tuck my shirts in, but in the tropics you have to adjust. I've taken some cues from my older tropical brothers on this one.

 

[GHT]

Question for GHT: wouldn't the weighting cause the garments to lay flat against the skin, thereby cutting off any flow of air?

No not at all. The weights are small but heavy, they are about the size of a book of matches. (This is not my computer, so I don't want to go uploading pictures onto it, or I would post you an image.) the jacket hangs just like my heavier pure wool ones. My wife got the idea from an article that she read about years ago. The royal costumier, sewed weights into the hemlines of the Queen's skirts and dresses to spare the royal blushes on windy days.

 

[GHT]

The problem with t-shirts is that they are an extra layer of clothing, which I find intolerable in tropical heat. Much preferable are light-colored rayon shirts, 1950's style with the collars that lie flat.

My mother bought me a couple of rayon shirts to wear to school in the 1950's. At the end of a hot day those shirts would guarantee me a seat on the bus. Maybe rayon, in the early days, was less absorbent than later versions of rayon. Certainly with the coming of polyester, synthetic materials were less likely leaving you with a B.O. problem. I take your point about the extra layer with t-shirts, that's why I don't throw out my old ones, I only wear them as absorbent underwear when they are absolutely threadbare.

 

[tropicalbob]

Yes, the problem I have with rayon is that you only have to look at it and it wrinkles. Still, I like the way it feels, and you can sometimes find nice ones on Ebay, even if they're modern reproductions that are nowhere near the quality of the ones from the 1950's and 1960's.

 

[Evan Everhart]

Well, if I were wearing jeans, I would wear my most faded out almost white blue Levis 501s with my suede chukkas and a safari style shirt of some sort to maintain the general feel of what you're describing, however to keep myself cool, I would typically wear lightweight cotton or wool gabardine or linen duck or plain weave trousers and/or jacket, and depending on the heat and my mood, either suspenders or a belt, open mesh weave socks or sheer socks in silk or linen or fine cashmere blend, a panama hat or linen paneled flat cap, hopsack is another top choice for both coats and suits, and of course my old stand-by of seersucker (100% cotton is the only way to really go here; the blends are torture). Oh, and cubavera or guayabera shirts from my Grandfather, and my old trustworthy madras camp shirt, or open weave long-sleeved slightly blousey silk shirts with camp collars worn alone. And spectators or chuckas or woven panel dress shoes or white bucks. Any or all of the above listed clothes will keep you more comfortable. Oh, and if you want to wear a tie, I highly recommend chambray or block printed madras (not patchwork). Oh, and real cheer chamere or chambray shirts.