A Letter from FASHION’s Editor-in-Chief

What’s the most fashionable season?

In 2024, German fashion influencer Brenda Weischer—better known as Brenda Hashtag on her social platforms—sparked a lively debate when she declared, “You can’t love summer and love fashion,” suggesting that the truly stylish do their best work in colder temperatures, aided by a heaping of considered layers and dark colours. It’s a convincing argument. After all, chicness becomes a secondary thought when the humidity tips into tropical-greenhouse territory.

But spend enough time, as I do, squaring the desire to look stylish with the reality of Canadian winters and the argument swiftly falls apart. I do not feel my most fashionable self as I begrudgingly shove my arms into the same wool coat for weeks on end or submit to a pair of winter boots that remind me of a raccoon pelt crossed with a spare tire. If there’s one sartorial principle I live by most of all, it’s that true style should look effortless. And there’s no season as effortless as summer.

It’s like switching my wine order from sturdy reds to fizzy Pét-nats

Summer doesn’t ask you to think about what to wear but, rather, how you’d like to feel while wearing it—breezy, optimistic, unbothered. Slipping my feet into a pair of leather mules and stepping out the door with no jacket required is my ultimate idea of freedom. The season officially opens when I change over the contents of my closet, unearthing linens and poplins that have been patiently waiting, if slightly trampled by time. It’s like switching my wine order from sturdy reds to fizzy Pét-nats. It’s trading heated seats for leaping into the back of a convertible.

This year, my vision for summer dressing looks like this: interesting outfit-making skirts in paper-thin silk to wear bar-hopping in Warsaw, translucent cotton dresses worn over a swimsuit to greet the sunrise at the cottage and a beaten-up pair of mirrored aviators picked up at a 7-Eleven in Sydney many summers ago to stare out of a rolled-down car window on a road trip.

For further cues, I’m looking to two notable women: Ines de la Fressange, who once told me she favours wearing dark colours in the summer, saving her light hues for winter in an unexpected twist, and Lena Dunham, who recently told CNN: “I just love putting on an outfit to walk the dog. There’s so much joy in it that gets sucked out by this E! red-carpet energy.” Later in the interview, Dunham told journalist Rachel Tashjian about buying a pair of acid-green Chanel flats. “That’s probably an expression of my entire fashion taste, which is moving toward the right thing in the wrong way.”

Here’s to getting it “wrong” this season and not wasting a single day on outfit regret—summer’s too short for that.

Warmly,

Liz Guber

This article first appeared in FASHION’s Summer 2026 issue. Read more stories from the Summer 2026 issue here, and subscribe to FASHION here.