How To Wear Stripes As Your Summer Clothes

It is official, one of the biggest trends for the season is ahead is stripey summer clothes. From day dresses, fashion tops, blazers and shoes, stripes will be every where this summer offering a classic or more contemporary look depending on how you wear them. Stripes are bold, they are striking and they can help to balance out the proportions or slim the figure if worn correctly, what’s not to love?

At the SS11 catwalk shows, stripes were present in a number of different guises. Most noticeably Prada showcased plenty of summer clothes with stripes for a maximum impact in bright colours and black combined with other bold prints. The collection also featured a striking blue and white jacket that is sure to make its way onto the high street in one form or another.  At Marc Jacobs there were also much thinner and delicate horizontal stripes in a range of pink and purples for a pretty and feminine look that is inspired by the seventies. At Jil Sander, there bold white and navy stripes decorating a voluminous maxi dress for a look that was difficult to ignore but also horizontal candy stripes on a maxi skirt combined with vertical black stripes on the top half.

How To Wear Stripes

Nautical Style

Striped Crop Top – Miss Selfridge

One of the easiest ways to wear stripes this summer is with simple blue and white stripes on day dresses or fashion tops. This fits well with the classic nautical look which never really goes out of fashion but is also particularly on trend now. A boat neck top with horizontal stripes is a very stylish way to balance out larger hips and if you add a pair of nautically inspired wide legged trousers you have a great figure fixing and on trend outfit. Striped fashion tops also look great when worn with jeans and a navy blazer. There are also a lot of different choices of nautical striped summer dress available.

Mixing stripes

Lottie Striped Knitted Jumper Dress

To add a more contemporary look to your summer clothes try mixing up your stripes. Wear separate striped pieces. You can look to contrast the width colour or direction of  the stripes for an interesting look. If you want to balance out a large bust, vertical stripes on the top half and a skirt with horizontal stripes will work well. You could also try looking for day dresses with graduating stripes that are thinner or the top half of the  dress and wider one the bottom half.  A striped blazer or cardigan worn over a  top with contrasting stripes is also a great way to work this trend.

Mixing Patterns

Camel Stripe Swing Mac – Dorothy Perkins

As seen at Prada, you can also mix stripes with other patterns and prints for a really striking look. Black or navy and white stripes lend themselves particularly well to pattern mixing and combined with all sort of bold and bright prints including florals, tropical prints and even polka dots. If you are worried about how to do this you could look for a summer dress which already has a mixture or stripes and patterns.