Dog Days: Dressing To Beat The Heat

I was curious about the origin of expression “dog days of summer,” and looked it up. Apparently it has nothing to do with dogs at all …

Instead, it turns out, the dog days refer to the dog star, Sirius, and its position in the heavens.

To the Greeks and Romans, the “dog days” occurred around the day when Sirius appeared to rise just before the sun, in late July. They referred to these days as the hottest time of the year, a period that could bring fever, or even catastrophe.

Hmmm, not crazy about the “catastrophe” reference, but it’s no secret that this is my least favorite time of year. Some people may love hot summer days, but I’m not one of them. Here in Southern California, we have several weeks of warm weather ahead; in fact our warmest days are often in September and October. Dressing for the heat is always challenging for me, even more so when every public indoor space seems to have a/c cranked up to arctic settings. Though I will go sleeveless in extremes, I prefer to have a little bit of shoulder/upper arm coverage.

Wearing: earrings | poncho | tank (similar) | bracelet | pants | bag | shoes

I used to wear ponchos a few years back, and was recently inspired to give them another try when I visited Linda V. Wright’s cashmere shop in Paris. I left with a lovely cashmere poncho (marked down during les soldes) that I wore during the flight home. (It’s fabulous for travel, more on this soon.) But a lightweight poncho like the one I’m wearing here can be a nice warm-weather option too. The weave is light and loose, the hemp fabric breathes, and it allows for lots of air circulation.

I’m sure some of you are recoiling at the idea of wearing black pants in the heat, but I’ve found these Eileen Fisher stretch crepe pants to work well even in substantial heat and humidity. I wore them around Phuket, Thailand a couple of years ago, and was pleasantly surprised at how comfortable they were. They’re also available in lighter colors, if you just can’t do black in summer. Plus size options here.

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And speaking of “dog days,” here’s how Byron copes with the heat…

When it’s too warm to sleep IN the bed… #dogs #dogsofinstagram #dogslife #cavalier #cavaliersofinstagram

A photo posted by une femme d’un certain âge (@susan_unefemme) on Aug 14, 2016 at 12:27pm PDT