Summer Style vs. Summer Comfort

I'll skip the morning niceties today and cut to the chase: in my heart of hearts I long to dress like this -- a Twenties dandy aboard the Ile de France en route to, I don't know, Capri or something.  I'd settle for Genoa.

Friends, barring a large inheritance from a mysterious millionaire mogul, I will never dress that way, let's just accept this once and for all.  I call pull off a vintage style cabana set, which is not to be minimized, and I have even been compared to gone-but-not-forgotten film star Troy Donahue (no cracks).  But I'm just not up for real style at the cost of comfort.

I live in an international fashion capital and I certainly wouldn't get beer cans thrown at me out of a speeding low rider if I dressed like Oscar Wilde instead of Oscar Madison.  I am simply too lazy to dress up.

When it comes to clothes, I'm no better than the rest of you.  Maybe even worse.

On Monday, still in a post-vacation haze and strictly on autopilot, I beelined it to the nearest fabric dive on 35th St. and picked up this:



This cotton stripe is as soft as flannel and just screams Bain de Soleil to me.  I splurged, too: $2/yd for only 44" instead of 60.  

I wanted to make something wonderful...a shirt, pants, even a caftan: summery but sophisticated.  Readers, I basically just made pajama bottoms.







No fly, an elastic waistband: clothes for a six-year-old boy.  But oh, so comfortable!

I also bought this gauzy off-white cotton and maybe I'll make some sort of flowy shirt with it.  Maybe even something with buttons and collar.

When it's this hot, and this summer has been torrid so far, even a drawstring sounds too binding, forget about an interfaced waistband.



I'm honestly one step from a sarong.

Readers throughout the world, do you ever fear that you've placed comfort too high on your priority list and let style go out the window?  Do you ever wake up and think, I just can't be bothered, no way, no how and who's walking the dogs this morning?

You've probably guessed by now that I do not go to an office every day though I still have my various meetings and commitments highly suggestive of adulthood.  I didn't steal all those vintage sewing machines and I have two chihuahuas to support, after all.

In closing, I pose this question:

Do you live in a glamorous capital city and struggle with the seemingly mutually exclusive dictates of comfort vs. style?   How do you handle it?  Also, do you have an extra bedroom available for the month of August and can I borrow your car?

I want to hear from you!