My summer movie style inspiration through the decades
A reflective look back at my summer muses
Who are you going to be this summer? I’ve often thought that summer lends itself to being a season ripe for reinvention. If might be that we travel more, that our social lives tend to ramp up, or that we are forced to reappraise our style, but summer allows us, for a small window, to be whoever we want to be.
I’ve often looked to films for my summer style inspiration and there seems to have been a defining one for each decade of my life (there are plenty of others not included here, but Substack has a word limit). And looking back at their wardrobes, they mainly still resonate today. So much so that I’ve also added a few shopping options for an updated 2024 approach to each of the looks. Happy summer simulating!
UNDER 10: My Girl (1991)
My Girl came out when I was nine years old and it was probably the first time I ever wanted to just totally become another person, which is a bit of an odd take because Vada Sultenfuss (Anna Chlumsky) is not having the best time of it. It’s the summer of 1972 and 11-year-old Vada is a hypochondriac dealing with first periods, a crush on her teacher, and the death of her mother while living in a funeral home in Pennsylvania. The only person who understands her is her best friend Thomas J (Macauley Culkin). That summer I tried to recreate some of Vada’s outfits, which was pretty easy: boyish striped tees and lots of denim, with a smattering of seventies-style blouses. For my birthday that year I received a cheap mood ring and almost fainted with excitement. I wasn’t really friends with the boys from school but I recall desperately wishing I’d paid them more attention in class so that I could hang out with them that summer. So instead I rode my bike around my home town quietly cursing that my mother was still alive and that we didn’t live in a funeral home. Oh how unfair life was!
TEENS: Stealing Beauty (1996)
I remember catching Stealing Beauty one night late on Channel 4 in the summer holidays when I was about 16 and being completely mesmerised. 19-year-old American Lucy Harmon (Liv Tyler) goes to stay with the bohemian friends of her deceased mother (again!) in Italy one summer, writes some terrible poetry in the bath (although I’m pretty sure I thought it was deep), and becomes hell bent on losing her virginity to old crush Niccolò. She runs around Tuscany in feminine nineties ditzy print dresses and men’s oversized shirts, which inspired me to steal one of my dad’s to wear around the house that summer, much to my parents’ confusion. The film also contains both the best pool I’ve never swum in and the best party I didn’t go to. If you wear the Realisation Par dress you are required to listen to Hole’s “Rock Star” and for the Rixo dress it’s Nina Simone’s “My Baby Just Cares For Me”. True aficionados will know what I mean.
TWENTIES: Before Sunrise (2004)
Technically Céline is supposed to be in her early thirties in the second instalment of Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy but I watched it in my early twenties and I was struck by her perfect Parisian outfit that remained a benchmark of chic for me throughout most of that decade. I bought a similar black top from Topshop that I wore to death, and you can tell it’s 2004 just by looking at Céline’s jeans, so I was already sorted for the straight-legged, ever-so-slightly baggy denim. Having caught Before Sunrise, the first in the series, as a teen, I practically ran to the cinema when Before Sunset came out in 2004, desperate to learn of Céline and Jesse’s fate, until the line “Baby, you are gonna miss that plane” puts you right back where you were when you started the film.
THIRTIES: Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008)
This came out in 2008 but I didn’t catch it for a few years so Penélope Cruz’s María Elena became my thirties summer muse. The very definition of hot mess, María Elena screams, scraps and smokes, all the while wearing the most perfect white cotton nightgowns, sexy dresses and smudged eyeliner that make the Gap-dressed titular Americans, Vicky and Cristina, look positively square in comparison. This is probably the hardest of all the looks to pull off, I was far too English for it. I was Vicky, I was Cristina, I was Gap. The less said about a black hat I bought one summer, the better. But María Elena is also part of the reason why, as summer approaches, I still reach for the broderie anglaise at the first glimmer of sun.
FORTIES: Call Me By Your Name (2017)
This was a close call between Annella Perlman and Greta Lee’s Nora Moon in Past Lives, and actually they both have a similar approach to summer dressing, favouring masculine shirts and loose trousers, but in the end Annella won out purely because, unlike Nora, she is actually in her forties. I’ve written before about my admiration for Annella in a previous newsletter I’m happy we’re only having one child… But I still have lots of feelings and it would seem my respect extends beyond her parenting to her style too. Now I’m 41, Annella seems like a perfect summer style muse for me, her wardrobe of loose tailoring in a palette of cream, camel and brown, a waft of denim and Italian leather shoes scream chic Euro mum. Annella, Annella, Annella, Annella.
What I’ve been enjoying this week…
Our friend dropped over a belated birthday present for my husband and it is - wait for it - one of the prop frogs used in the frog shower scene in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia (Frog #13, we’re told). It feels like a Boglin (if anyone remembers those) and is totally ridiculous and it now has pride of place in my husband’s study (he even got a little box for it). My friend bought it from Prop Store Auction that sells off some seriously niche movie and TV memorabilia. I’m now planning on buying everyone random props for gifts going forward. Much more fun than a Diptyque.
What I’ve not been enjoying this week…
Speaking of summer dressing, I bought my two-year-old son some cute sandals and he flat out refuses to wear them; when I attempted to put them on he had the biggest meltdown of his short life. Is he destined to wear his clunky velcro trainers all summer long or does anyone have any tips for getting a toddler to try out new shoes?
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When I saw the title of this piece I wondered if Before Sunset would be on the list! Still obsessed with that wafty black top x
That black top from Before Sunset!!! I still remember the little "oh my god I WANT IT" obsession with it that started when she turned away from the camera and revealed it had an open back. It remains my romantic ideal of summer tops to this day <3