A scarf? In summer? While at first that might sound faintly ridiculous and akin to wearing shorts in winter, a lightweight scarf can, in fact, be a useful tool for when the weather heats up. ‘Lightweight’ is the key word here. Naturally, it wouldn’t be wise to don your densely-woven lambswool neckwarmer at the height of ice-cream season – that would be ridiculous.

Many items of clothing have seasonal iterations made from lighter weight fabrics and with warmer colour palettes. The scarf is no different. There are a plethora of options to wrap your head around made from summer-friendly fabrics – think cotton, linen, seersucker, silk or modal – so whether you’re after some added warmth when evening comes around, or you want to inject a dose of colour into your outfit, you can find a summer scarf that’s right for you.

Summer Scarf Fabric

For no-sweat style in a summer scarf, fabric is key. Adopt a similar mindset to how you’d choose a new warm-weather blazer, i.e., keep an eye out for loose, open-weave fibres that breathe well and aren’t stifling. As such, many of the materials you’d find in summer tailoring apply here too.

Linen is an obvious choice: soft on the skin, it’s light and drapes well, and the annoying wrinkles that would wind you up on a suit jacket don’t apply here. They are just part of the look – artfully dishevelled, you could call it.

Then there’s cotton which is much of the same, although generally slightly sturdier than linen, and can take more of a beating. Silk is a luxurious option and perhaps the best – certainly it’s the softest and most expensive, and will last if cared for properly. Finally there’s modal, a lesser-known fabric derived from wood pulp, that boasts a smooth handle and increased water absorbency over cotton.

But, as is often the way with tailoring, a blend of two or three of these fibres is perhaps the greatest shout as you’ll get the best attributes of each fabric. Go for a cotton/linen/silk mix and you’ll get the sheen of silk, the softness of linen and the robustness of cotton. A material gain in the most literal sense.