After endless months of doom and gloom in Boston, it happened. The sun came out, and in rushed spring AND summer together, holding hands, running through the grass barefooted with abandon. Memorial Day is almost upon us, and finally - FINALLY - the feeling in the air has changed. Let my bones be warmed! I am looking forward to summer. Summer is a feeling, isn’t it?

It’s freedom, relaxation, a big calming exhale out. It’s the way skin feels kissed by the sun. It feels lighter, head back. It means we plan a vacation, shed layers, physically and mentally, and give ourselves a little more permission to relax.

Visually, summer is linen and bright colors and white and the mirrored reflection of sunglasses. It’s exposed shoulders and collarbones and a straw fedora and the color of bougainvillea. It is bare legs and glossy toes and the permission to wear gauzy fabrics from exotic locales that are the colors of jewels. The convertible top comes down, hair blows wild and messy. Cherries and peaches dribble down our chins and fingers, staining lips a juicy color.

And, if you have an overactive imagination like mine, stripes take you places, spin stories in your mind. They conjure Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief. Brigitte Bardot tousled and sexy in the south of France. The foreign love affairs you wouldn’t dare have on the cold, sober soil of home. Suddenly I’m in some tiny, charming European town, wearing white and espadrille sandals, strolling through the dusty streets shopping for a straw market tote to fill with bread and olives and cheeses for dinner. That dinner will be eaten on some little terrace under the twinkling of white lights, rosé in hand until it demands to be set down in favor of dancing under the stars. The scent of lemons and the sea infuses the evening with a kind of languid, drunk romance.

Even if my actual summer plans don’t involve this idyllic fantasy, I can still wear stripes. And I do. I love them! After all, fashion at its core is simply a visual evocation of a narrative, character, time, place, or feeling that you want to convey and experience. Wearing something can change the way you feel and move. For me, stripes create the breezy lightness of summer. J’adore l’éte!