I love summer, I love the warmth, everyone around you always seem to be happy and cheery. One of my absolute pet peeves about summer heat is the sweat, odours and uncomfortable clothes. Well… Uncomfortable clothes are a pet peeve of mine all year round, but you get my point. I have learnt about sweat and sweaty odours the hard way while growing up because I used to not know anything about how some fabrics are better to avoid in summer. Obviously my mum and dad always told me what kind of fabrics to avoid, but I was a stubborn teen, so I just decided not to listen.

It’s only until last year that I really started caring about the fabrics that are best to wear for summer. I think it’s something to do with turning older, more mature and wanting to find clothes that you know will last you a longer time. Summer is definitely that time of year to start re-evaluating your wardrobe and to consider choosing your fabrics carefully.

Gravitate towards: natural fabrics

The past year I have learnt that natural fabrics are the best fabrics to wear during any time of year. In winter wool will keep you warm. In summer, natural fabrics will keep you cool. Not only will they keep you cool, they are also super comfortable to wear on a hot summer day. My first natural fabric that I love to wear in summer is cotton. Cotton is perfect to wear in summer as it’s breathable and keeps you cool. You can go for a simple tee, but it’s also a perfect fabric to wear as a dress, blouse, or a beach cover up.

Another great, all natural fabric is linen. Linen is one of the most perfect summer fabrics. It’s a super easy and breezy fabric that makes you look effortlessly cool. There’s lots of linen to be found during this time of year and it can easily be within your price range. I love to buy my linen clothes at H&M, ZARA and Mango. I already wrote a whole blog post dedicated to linen, which you can find here. Chambray is another one of those fabrics that is great for summer. I remember owning a blazer years ago, which was made from chambray. This material is a lightweight version of denim, which sounds great!

Hit or miss: semi-synthetic fabrics

Viscose or rayon is a semi-synthetic fabric. It’s not a natural fabric nor is it a completely synthetic fabric. Viscose or rayon is made from a natural product, but the process about it is chemical. I personally find viscose very similar to cotton and tend to find lots of dressed are made from viscose instead of cotton. I love this fabric, as it’s very breathable in my opinion, which is great for super warm weather. The only downside with viscose is that it gets super creasy when it gets wet or when you are out and about. I just take that for granted though, as I personally prefer to wear viscose over polyester or anything else synthetic.

To avoid: synthetic fibres

Polyester and nylon and all the other synthetic fabrics are made from synthetic fibres. I always find that this doesn’t really have the ability to absorb moisture on sweaty days. I remember very clearly that I once wore a polyester jumpsuit during a summer’s day and it left me with one of the worst thigh chafing of my life. Since then I have tried to avoid fabrics such as polyester and nylon as much as possible. Obviously it’s quite hard to avoid because I have recently loved midi skirts, however most of the affordable ones around are made from synthetic fibres. So as much as I try to avoid, I can’t really avoid synthetic fabrics everywhere, as the beloved satin skirts from all the highstreet stores are actually made from polyester. I do find that wearing synthetic fibres as a skirt is more comfortable to wear than as a pair of shorts or a jumpsuit, as they can quite easily chaf your skin.