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Whenever I feel a yearning for a fresh start (which is to say most of the time), I find myself shopping for a new striped shirt. There is a harmony, a buoyancy and a palate-cleansing freshness to the garment—it’s like a sartorial sorbet. And this desire generally coincides with the realization that I’ve succumbed to this particular longing too many times. My closet is an archive of my own neuroses; I appear to have more stripes than the Grevy’s zebra. Or a 19th-century French sailor. Automatic Uv Umbrella
The Breton-striped combed-cotton jersey became part of the French naval uniform in 1858, and while the look now telegraphs a salt-air insouciance, it once followed rigid specifications: 21 20-mm-wide white stripes and 21 10mm-wide blue stripes, etc., each stripe a tribute to the number of Napoleon’s victories over the British.
If resortwear was once about dressing for the resort, it now seems to be about dressing as the resort.
Coco Chanel, inspired by the humility of this jersey garment, introduced the borrowed-from-the-sailors marinière shirt in her 1917 nautical collection, turning it into a vive-la-résistance symbol of protest and feminine power. Its silhouette was blousy and comfortable, free from all girdling and drawing a definitive line (stripe?) through the confining fashions and mores of the day.
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The stripe, of course, set sail from its working-class roots long ago. The pattern has since been adopted by the intellectual and artistic bohemia, including Jean Cocteau and Pablo Picasso, and was later reborn as the effortless uniform of French New Wave heroines Jane Birkin and Jean Seberg. The aesthetic became an instant passport to French-girl je ne sais quoi after Seberg famously wore a sailor’s shirt to impossibly chic effect in Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960 Breathless, pairing it with cigarette pants, full-pleated skirts and the streets of Paris.
Today, the stripe has, let’s say, broadened its horizons. The stripes du jour are wider, more generous, as if they’ve slipped off the beach umbrellas of a private club on the French or Italian Riviera. If resortwear was once about dressing for the resort, it now seems to be about dressing as the resort. Especially if we’re not actually going to Italy: the new stripe, adorning dresses, tunics, tees and totes, is the dream of a blissful holiday set to fabric.
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A scene from The White Lotus season 2 floats to mind: Aubrey Plaza’s character, Harper, wearing a linen button down with wide stripes in sky blue and white—she is the picture of ease and ennui (a timeless pairing). Plaza blends in beautifully with the exclusive seaside setting on Sicily’s Ionian sea, her outfit echoing the blue-and-white umbrellas that dot the beachscape.
In the same way that people in the ’80s wore khakis (courtesy of designers like Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein) to go on safari and blend in with the savannah, it now appears that we are wearing parasol stripes to go on vacation—or, at least, to pretend we’re on vacation.
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Conversely, resorts themselves are no longer just playgrounds to wear beautiful clothing but designers. This year, Italian fashion brand Loretta Caponi collaborated with the Hotel Il Pellicano, a monument to la Dolce Vita carved into a cliff overlooking the Tyrrhenian sea, on a collection of delicately embroidered dresses.
There is a jubilance and a playfulness to the look, too. French fashion house Patou, founded in 1914 by Jean Patou, has a hot young artistic director Guillaume Henry (formerly of Carven), whose latest collection is a loot bag of happy plage-ready parasol stripes in candied, feel-good colours. One mint-and-white confection calls to mind the awning of a seaside glacier in Antibes—that or a child’s party hat.
The retro glamour and nostalgia of the cabana stripe calls to mind the Golden Age of European beach travel, the Cote d’Azur or the Italian Riviera in its 1960s heyday. These are the pieces you would have found poolside as Slim Aarons set up his camera.
The pinstripe—uniform of the British banker—was meant for making money, but the umbrella stripe is more about spending it.
If the classic Breton stripe may once have been all about utility and freedom, the parasol stripe seems more of a toast to exclusivity and not-so-stealth wealth, giving off a well-leisured trust-fund vibe. Its relative the pinstripe—uniform of the British banker—was meant for making money, but the umbrella stripe is more about spending it.
Fashion—and resortwear in particular—has always been about fantasy, magicking delight in the face of doom. In this time of economic instability and world-on-fire alarm, the parasol stripe is the ultimate symbol of relaxation and abundant disposable income, offering the fantasy of a holiday most of us can’t afford and reminding us of a time that no longer exists. And now that I’ve written myself into a fresh depression, I’m ready to cover up my feelings in some new stripes—a little holiday (from myself).
This striped poplin caftan from Everlane is heat-wave uniform dressing, all crisp, floaty ease and oversized languor.
If a day spent lounging on a European beach were a tote, this would be it. This perfect summer bag from Clare V. comes in a colour scheme that recalls seashells, blue skies and an aperol spritz.
This sunshine-yellow shirt dress in awning stripe comes courtesy of Trovata, which appropriately calls an old sail loft in Newport Beach its design HQ.
Delicately embroidered sun dresses from Italian designer Loretta Caponi are 1960s Fellini-esque fantasies in cotton and linen. This parasol-striped delight in cloud white and lollipop red seems destined to live out its life at Italy’s Il Pellicano hotel.
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