TL;DR
Summer dressing gets boring when every piece agrees with every other piece. This capsule is built on the opposite premise: one tomboy anchor, one thing that makes you wonder why, and both worn with full commitment and zero explanation. The best pieces come from the men’s thrift section, the weird vintage corner, and the bottom of your accessory drawer. The rule is: don’t balance it. Let it argue.
A summer capsule for anyone who can’t pick a side.
Summer dressing can be very formulaic and algorithm-based. When written out on paper that version of getting dressed in summer makes complete sense. Linen shorts. A white tank. A sandal that coordinates.
You look fine. You look appropriate for the temperature. You look like you made a decision and stuck with it, which is apparently what adults do.
This post is not about that.
The Problem With Summer Dressing
This is for the person who pulled on board shorts this morning…actual board shorts, the kind with a mesh lining and a drawstring and no architectural ambition, and then reached for something small and strappy and red, and thought: yes, this works.
Not as a joke or a statement. Just works, in the way that some things work before you can explain the why.
Summer literally sucks the creativity out of my body. I become almost robotic just to survive the season.
It has a way of flattening everything into practicality. It’s hot, you want to be comfortable, you reach for the obvious, and somewhere around July, you have been wearing the same rotating cast of linen and cotton and sensible footwear for two months, and you look fine, and you are also bored out of your mind.
The matching set matches too well. The outfit actually makes sense from every angle, it’s just kind of existing if that makes sense.
Nothing is arguing with anything else, and the result is dressing that is technically functional but also feels a bit spiritually inert.
The solution is not elevated even though they would like to tell you that it is. The solution is dressing like two people got into an argument about who you are, and both of them won.
Pink Blouse | Vintage Levis | Mary Janes | Lips Clutch | Vintage Belt | Men’s Olive Green Shirt | Grey Mules | Yellow Skirt | Blue Button Up | White Derby Shoes | Black Tote | Tan Skirt | Green Scarf Shirt | Scultpure Cardigan | White Graphic Tee | Striped Button Up | Vintage Necklace | Cargo Shorts | Men’s Jersey | Sneaker Loafers | Sunglasses | Blue Wedge Sandals | Snake Print Bag | Burgundy Trousers
The Tomboy Half of the Wardrobe
The starting point is the tomboy half, which is a category that I fully embrace. I never pass up a walk through the men’s department, and the first place I hit in a thrift store is always the men’s section.
Oversized. Utilitarian. Maybe some men’s board shorts with a working drawstring.
Or basketball shorts that are actually from the men’s section, not the women’s version designed to look like basketball shorts while being significantly more flattering yet less interesting.
Cargo trousers or shorts with pockets that function. A vintage graphic t-shirt or a bowling style shirt in a print that is deeply specific, fish, or bowling pins, or a Hawaiian scene.
A men’s XL tee from a sport or band you may or may not have a relationship with.
Why the Men’s Thrift Section Is Where the Good Stuff Lives
This is where thrift comes in, and not as a budget strategy, but as a sourcing philosophy.
The men’s section of any decent thrift store is where the interesting things live. The weird graphic tee that has survived twenty years because nobody wanted it enough to wear it out.
The shirt in a print so specific it could only have belonged to one particular person, and that person is now you.
The basketball shorts in a colourway from 2003 that has circled back to being right in style again. The cargo trouser in a fabric that has aged into something better even better than how it started.
You are not shopping the men’s section because it’s cheaper. You are shopping it because it has better stories.
The tomboy half of this wardrobe is also where the volume lives. Things are a little big. A little long. A little more fabric than strictly necessary. This is intentional because the ease is the point.
You are not trying to look small in any of it.
And then there is the other half.
The Girly Half, And Why It Needs to Be Slightly Too Much
The other half is girly in a way that is slightly too much, or slightly too specific, or both.
A crochet top in a colour that makes you do a double take. A ruffle somewhere, not all over, just enough that you know it’s there.
A satin slip top or something flowy with a texture that is deliberate and maybe slightly impractical for the activity you’re doing.
A tiny structured bag that holds almost nothing and is shaped like something like a shell, a flower, maybe even lips. The whole point is the way it looks, not its functionality.
A hair clip that seems too ornate for everyday wear.
Or even a piece of jewellery that is almost too much, just almost.
The girly pieces are also where colour lives, if colour is going to live anywhere. The rest of the wardrobe can be as neutral and as washed-out as it wants to be.
The crochet top might be yellow. The Mary Jane is a red that is almost too red. The bag is something unexpected.
The colour doesn’t coordinate with anything, which is how you want it, because coordination is what you are specifically not doing here.
What You’re Actually Looking for When You Thrift the Feminine Pieces
And this half also benefits from thrift, but differently.
You are looking for the piece that is weird in the right way. The vintage blouse with a small embroidered detail on the collar seems unnecessary, but also makes the entire shirt.
The skirt from twenty years ago that is perfect now, in a way the person who originally bought it definitely did not intend.
The bag that was somebody’s grandmother’s, and has a clasp that makes a very satisfying sound.
You are not looking for the obvious vintage find. You are looking for the thing that makes you stop walking.
On personality pieces:
The wardrobe only works if some things in it are genuinely yours, not trend-adjacent, not aesthetically correct, just actually specific to you.
The personality piece might be a pin collection on the camp shirt, accumulated over years from places and phases you may or may not want to explain.
It might be a bracelet you’ve worn so long you’ve forgotten why you started wearing it, or a very specific pair of sunglasses that you found and that make you feel like a different.
Maybe a slightly more interesting version of yourself, which they do not do for anyone else.
It might be a sock with a print that is very niche, like a vegetable, a small animal, a pattern from a different decade, that is also functions as a tiny biography.
The personality piece is not an accessory in the conventional sense. It’s the thing that tells you this wardrobe belongs to a person, not a concept.
Anyone can wear board shorts and a crochet top. The personality piece is what makes it undeniably yours, which is harder to shop for and worth the effort.
Some of the pieces in this wardrobe are pricey, especially the personality pieces, which was done intentionally. Because these are more like a personality piece placeholders until you find yours.
While I don’t have the print cardigan, I do have two other personality piece cardigans from this same brand. So it was natural for me to pick out something from them as the personality piece for this wardrobe because they are so good at doing that job.
I also have the red Mary Janes, which I bought over 2 years ago now.
But these are also things you can find at thrift stores. Pieces with the same look or vibes.
Maybe some pins on the camo jacket that came with it. The brooch shaped like a beetle or maybe a giant praying mantis.
A belt with a buckle that’s doing something weird or unexpected. You can’t plan for them, which is why you have to look consistently, in the way that serious thrifters understand and everyone else finds tiring.
You are not shopping for something specific. You are shopping so that when the specific thing appears, you recognise it.
How to Wear It
The outfits that come out of this wardrobe do not balance. They do not resolve. The tomboy half and the girly half coexist without coming to an agreement, which is the whole point of this post.
You are not mixing masculine and feminine in a thoughtful, curated way. You are wearing two things that probably shouldn’t be together, yet you are wearing them like it’s obvious, because to you, it really is that obvious.
This requires, and there is no way around this…not explaining yourself.
You need to remember that the moment you mention that you know the shorts are board shorts, that yes, you’re aware it’s technically a children’s style shoe, that the bag is a little ridiculous, you’ve undermined the whole thing.
The outfit only works at full confidence, which in this case means full commitment to the premise that this is just how you got dressed, and it didn’t occur to you that it would ever need defending.
Because it really, really doesn’t.
You are not two people. You just dress like it, which turns out to be more interesting than dressing like one coherent person who has resolved all her personal contradictions.
Resolving your contradictions is overrated. The wardrobe that argues with itself is the wardrobe worth having.
The linen set will still be there. It will still make sense. You can wear it when you want something easy, correct and a bit forgettable (if I am being honest), which is sometimes what you want, and that’s absolutely fine.
But this is the other option. It’s messier, more specific, and significantly harder to be bored by. That feels worth a mesh lining and a drawstring.
Tomboy Femme Summer Outfit Ideas
Pink Blouse | Vintage Levis | Mary Janes | Lips Clutch | Vintage Belt | Men’s Olive Green Shirt | Grey Mules | Yellow Skirt | Blue Button Up | White Derby Shoes | Black Tote | Tan Skirt | Green Scarf Shirt | Scultpure Cardigan | White Graphic Tee | Striped Button Up | Vintage Necklace | Cargo Shorts | Men’s Jersey | Sneaker Loafers | Sunglasses | Blue Wedge Sandals | Snake Print Bag | Burgundy Trousers
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Im not sure what I love better about your capsules: the creative names or the actual combos of clothing that I would never consider but always look unique and cool. Well done!
Great post, as always! It’s so interesting though: you often mention that you struggle in summer, whereas I find it such an easy season to get dressed. And I’m not the coconut girl type at all, I like all seasons, and never wear my matching linen set together. Paradoxically, that’s the time when my most minimalistic self and my most boho maximalist self are at peace. I can happily wear very simple black-and-white outfits all week long, genuinely enjoying how the cut of the t-shirt or a different shoe shifts the whole mood. I often wear all dark and feel like there’s nothing to add. That would never fly for me in autumn. And when I crave a burst of colour and interest, I finally get to wear all my quirky pieces and jewellery, which in colder seasons with more layers feels like too much. They get to shine in an outfit with fewer distractions, maybe? I embrace dresses and all kinds of flowyness, the skin hot from the sun, and the opportunity to wear less – and care less! – that comes with it.