If supermodels can do it, so should we. Oh, wait a minute…

It is hard to dress for Irish weather at the best of times.  Every year I think that it’ll be the year I get to talk about swimwear and shorts, but it’s now reaching the end of July and the majority of the population still have yet to buy their first summer ‘99 (with extra Flake, please).

At time of writing, its is warm during the day, but cloudy and also rainy.  It it freezing at night.  Wear a jacket, you boil.  Take it off, you get soaked.  Jeans go clammy in a matter of minutes.  Opaque tights are uncomfortable.  Unclad, untanned legs look at bit like chicken fillets that have been left to defrost and unfortunately forgotten about in the kitchen sink.

How best to dress for comfort in this weather?  Go nude.  Carry a blanket and an umbrella around in a hold-all for cold/wet situations.  There is no other way to go in terms of comfort.  The only by-product of your comfort is the extreme discomfort of others when you decide that the blanket that covers your shame would also double as a nice picnic blanket for lunch in the Peace Park.

Or try a dehumidifier suit.  I’m pretty sure that they haven’t been invented yet, but surely someone will find a way (just to let you know, I demand 10% of the profits right off).  You will be cool and cozy – with the added bonus of scaring small children, scattering them like confused pigeons as you stroll down Patrick Street of a Saturday afternoon.

Go into a department store and try on everything over your suit.  Cause a fuss when nothing fits and rampage out like a 1950’s B-Movie monster, perhaps taking a few celebrity perfume ad cardboard cut-outs with you.  If your summer is as boring as this weather is, you’ll thank me later.  If you get sued, we never met and you definitely didn’t get that idea from me – by the way, I still want that 10% of the humidity suit profits.

If you’re of the school of Gaga and determined to make your personal sartorial expression independent to the whims of the weather system, you’ll have to make the ‘slightly sweaty ham’ look a Summer trend.  Whether it’s black jeans or a full-on fur coat, wear it with pride, bring oil-blotting pads for your face and under no circumstances should you attempt to wear a fringe, even if it does hide the glowing, struggling pink beacon that is the forehead.

It may be tempting, but please, please do not give in to the urge to wear leggings as trousers.  I know it’s easy breezy.  Its the clothing equivalent of eating McDonalds for every meal; it’s too convenient and you may eventually die inside. Case in point – today I saw a picture of a woman on a bus wearing incredibly tight, nude leggings.  To my myopic eyes, it looked like she had forgotten both trousers and underwear.  I can never unsee that. Never.  And neither will anyone else.