How to Create Interesting Outfits When You’re Wearing Less
The Third Piece Rule, reimagined for 98 degrees
Summer is probably my favorite season emotionally, aesthetically, and spiritually.
Getting dressed for it? Weirdly one of the hardest.
You would think it would be the easiest season for me. My closet has vintage summer dresses, lightweight linen button-downs, printed cottons, vintage silk slips, gauzy pieces I’ve collected over years of travel. Things that should feel easy.
But somehow, summer is the season where I feel the least inspired.
I think part of it is that I naturally gravitate toward texture and layering. Fall, spring, even winter allow for so much visual play. You can throw a jacket over a knit over a tee, mix textures, proportions, weights, and colors. There is depth built into the outfit before you even start accessorizing.
Summer strips a lot of that away.
And while I don’t think summer dressing should feel complicated, part of its beauty is it’s simplicity. I do think it becomes harder to create visually interesting outfits when there’s simply... less outfit.
A few months ago I wrote about what I call the Third Piece Rule. Most outfits start with two things, a top and a bottom, or a dress and shoes. The third piece is what makes it intentional. A jacket. A scarf. An unexpected piece of jewelry. A great bag. Something that adds personality, or point of view.
In fall and winter, third pieces are everywhere. Jackets, sweaters, coats, hats. We practically trip over them.
Summer takes most of them away.
So I spent an afternoon in my closet trying to figure out why I always feel stuck this time of year.
Sometimes the Third Piece Is Color
I’ve spent years thinking I should probably be one of those women who wears more color in summer.
The truth is, I’m just not.
Left to my own devices, I’m reaching for neutrals. Looking through these outfits only confirmed that.
What surprised me was realizing that color wasn’t technically absent. It was just concentrated.
A red sandal with a black dress. Pink ballet flats with an otherwise simple outfit. A yellow shoe peeking out beneath oversized cream trousers. A printed top worn with black cargo pants.
The outfit itself isn’t colorful, but one piece is.
And the unexpectedness of it — the pink flat, the yellow shoe, the piece that makes you look twice — is exactly where the tension lives. Animal print works the same way. It reads as a neutral, but it has a point of view.
Color doesn’t have to mean an outfit full of it. Sometimes it’s one piece.
A few that are earning their place as the third piece right now (from top left, clockwise):
red ballet flat · blue and brown flip flop · yellow ballet flat · leopard thongs · red elastic strap sandals · snakeskin sandals· blue satin sandals· white leather thongs
Sometimes the Third Piece Is a Layer
This was probably my biggest revelation.
I kept telling myself summer was hard because I couldn’t layer.
Then I looked at the photos.
Apparently I never stopped layering.
I just changed the materials.
A silk Chinese jacket over a slip dress. An embroidered robe over black lace. An oversized striped shirt over a tank. A faded chambray shirt tied around the waist.
The layers are still there. They’re just lighter, airier, and doing their job without adding weight.
Summer layering isn’t about adding more clothing. It’s about creating dimension with lighter fabrics.
Sometimes It’s Texture Doing the Work
If winter is about layering clothing, summer might be about layering textures.
Lace. Crochet. Embroidery. Cotton gauze. Washed silk. Raffia. Eyelet.
The more I looked at the outfits I liked, the more I realized texture was doing a lot of the heavy lifting.
Texture creates depth without creating heat, which feels like a pretty good summer strategy.
Handbags earn their place here in the texture category too. Raffia, woven straw, braided leather — the summer equivalent of a chunky knit. Weight and interest without a single extra layer.
A few I keep coming back to right now:
knit hobo bag in black · cotton macrame bag · N.19 trapeze straw bag · red macrame bag · wooden mini bead bag in brown · belted woven raffia tote · Phoebe’s blue raffia tote · black straw basket tote
Sometimes the Third Piece Is Proportion
This was another strong pattern I noticed.
When there’s less clothing, the shape of the outfit matters more.
Tiny top. Giant pant. Long skirt. Oversized shirt. Barely-there shorts. Fitted dress. Voluminous layer.
The contrast becomes the styling.
Looking through these photos, I realized I wasn’t creating interest through complexity. I was creating it through balance.
Something fitted paired with something oversized. Something feminine paired with something utilitarian. Something structured paired with something relaxed.
The tension is what makes the outfit interesting.
Sometimes the Third Piece Is Personality
Summer gives accessories more responsibility. The sunglasses matter more. The jewelry matters more. The bag matters more.
And hats might be the easiest shortcut of all.
I noticed while looking at these photos, how dramatically a hat changed an outfit.
Same dress. Same shoes. Same jewelry. Different person.
Sometimes the third piece isn’t another garment. It’s simply the thing that gives the outfit character.
A hat might be the lowest-effort third piece in existence.
A few hats worth knowing about:
Gardinier garden hat · Staud bucket hat · Janessa Leone white cotton bucket hat · Toteme black straw bell hat · Emily Dawn Long “Wanda” · By Malene Birger striped hat · North Face bucket hat (comes in nearly every color — worth checking)
Which brings me back to summer.
Do I always succeed at summer dressing?
Absolutely not.
But summer dressing isn’t about abandoning the Third Piece Rule. It’s about getting more creative with what the third piece can be.
A lighter fabric instead of a heavier one. A concentrated hit of color instead of an all-over palette. A proportion that does the work a jacket would have done in October.
The outfit doesn’t need to be complicated.
It just needs enough tension to feel alive.
xo, Simone
❤️