How You Can Still Layer in the Summer Heat

Summer’s great for a lot of things: tropical vacations, major sporting events, blockbuster movies. Dressing, notably, is not one of those things. “Can’t wait til it gets colder so I can really start dressing,” goes the tweet. In the broiling heat, with the UV and humidity cranked up, dressing for survival is priority number one. Layering for fashion? Last on the list. For the fashion diehards among us, however, swag never takes a day off, and these brave souls have taken up the challenge of summer layering with impressively cool results.The sweater-as-accessory adds visual interest, not insulation. Courtesy of ERLThis past Paris Fashion Week, during record-high temperatures, I saw stylish dudes everywhere draping sweaters over their shoulders and tying shirts around their waists. Did they intend to actually wear that sweater at some point during the heatwave? Unlikely. Especially in a city notoriously anti-aircon. Instead, it felt like men were treating their tops more like accessories, slinging them over a shoulder like a bag or around their neck like a scarf. Of course, in more temperate areas (and ones blessed with air-conditioning), shirts and sweaters still function as intended. Jon Alan, stylist and community manager for Buck Mason, says that it’s a useful trick for places like his home base of Los Angeles. “I think what this really does is it gives you a cheat code for getting to layer without actually having to really wear something. There's utility to it as well, you know?” Of course, there are added style points in the accessorization of a top, which provides an opportunity for texture, color, and shape.That’s not the only way savvy dudes are layering up in the heat: Some brave souls are doubling up their T-shirts, layering them in different colors. The game here is playing with color combinations and ways to show off both tees—whether it’s rolling up the sleeves or shifting the necklines ever so slightly—to create something like an overbuilt ringer tee. With the vintage market entering its grubbiest era yet, hole-ridden and paper-thin T-shirts offer another, breezier avenue for layering. For Sam Bolianatz, content creator and writer of the Boy Room newsletter, jumping full-time into menswear content pushed him to explore new ways of styling himself. “I was like, okay, how am I gonna wear outfits that are interesting in the summer, because now it's my job and I have no excuse to just wear something boring every day,” he explains. “I feel like my challenge is to layer all year round, because in the winter, I feel like that's how I make my outfits feel more interesting. I like having a lot of pretty simple pieces, and layering them in new ways.”A sweatshirt tied jauntily around the neck raises your khakis-and-tee combo by several levels of sophistication. Courtesy of Jon AlanWearing a button-down shirt tied around your waist is an unexpected move, but a surprisingly practical one for travelling between the sticky outdoors and an air-conditioned office. Courtesy of Sam BolianatzMarcus Allen, stylist and founder of The Society Archive, says he likes to wear multiple polos simultaneously, not necessarily for function, but out of nostalgia. “I think there's opportunity to create character by layering polos,” he says. “I also love to do a lightweight jersey hoodie over a button-up, or wear the hoodie as an underlayer, with a linen shirt or lightweight flannel shirt over it.”The most surprising way men are layering may also be the most revealing. As tees continue to shrink, jeans are inching lower, leaving the underwear—even a little midriff—exposed. “I think it's an opportunity to either add more interest or add more context to a look by styling a pant so that you can see a cotton boxer underneath,” says Allen, whose most recent Society Archive creation was—as luck would have it—a collection of ‘90s-esque plaid and polka dot boxers.Showing off your boxers is a '90s mall-era move that's ripe for a summer renaissance. Courtesy of Marcus AllenAs anyone who remembers the mall era will tell you, these summer layering hacks aren’t anything new, but what makes them different from those in the preppy catalogs of the ‘90s and aughts is their recontextualization. By combining a polo or a plaid shirt with a disparate element—a vintage tee here, a Versace silk shirt there, Uggs instead of loafers—prep morphs into something more dynamic and less rigid.A handful of guys I talked to also cited stylish women as their inspirations for summer layering, proving the time-tested truism that whatever’s trending in women’s fashion will eventually make its way to menswear. At the end of the blistering hot day, though, summer layering—even for the most ahead-of-the-curve fashion pioneer—is still rooted in the realities of an ever-warming world and the ability to make whatever you’re wearing look effortless. “Regardless of layering, I'm definitely an advocate for dressing for purpose and practicality,” Allen says. “Or, else you’re coming off as styled, which is never a vibe.”