It’s only just the start of sunny season and we’ve already resigned ourselves to a summer without a proper holiday. Not being able to escape to a faraway sandy beach for a few glorious weeks certainly does put a damper on things, but as always, we’re trying to look on the bright side. In the MR PORTER offices – by which we mean the makeshift desk set-ups we’ve fashioned in our homes – we’ve been devising ways to get our fill elsewhere. Here then are five of our favourite summertime films that raise the style stakes. Use them as inspiration for your own warm-weather wardrobes or simply to spark a lockdown reverie, dreaming of what might have been.

While it is, indubitably, one of the most stylish movies of all time, endless column inches have already been penned (many of them, truth be told, by us) on the sartorial merits of 1999’s cinematic stunner The Talented Mr Ripley. Less well-known, but equally elegant in the costume department, is _Plein Soleil _(or, Purple Noon), the earlier French adaptation of the same novel by Ms Patricia Highsmith, starring an invariably dapper Mr Alain Delon, who swans about as Tom Ripley. There’s light linen tailoring, louche dishevelled shirts and impossibly short swimming trunks. A picture-perfect, effortless summer wardrobe, then? So long as you haven’t skipped leg day, that is.

Reducing Do The Right Thing to its style merits does a disservice to director, writer and producer Mr Spike Lee. First released in 1989 but just as fresh and relevant today, it remains one of the most powerful, eloquent and affecting representations of what it means to be black in the US and it has become essential viewing in the wake of the death of Mr George Floyd. Set on the hottest day of the summer in Brooklyn, the film chronicles the rising tensions in a close-knit African-American neighbourhood, documenting systemic racism and police brutality in brilliant colour. Coded in the clothes are complex expressions of blackness: from Buggin Out’s box-fresh Air Jordans being unceremoniously scuffed by a white cyclist to Radio Raheem’s “Bed-Stuy Do Or Die” T-shirt which foreshadows the film’s tragic, and infuriatingly, still all-to-common conclusion, there’s hardly a sartorial moment that isn’t worth sitting up and taking notice of.

On the subject of who is responsible for Mr Robert Redford’s impeccable tailoring in The Great Gatsby, you’ll get one of two answers depending on who you ask. There’s Mr Ralph Lauren who is credited as his tailor on the picture and who has built a reputation as something of a Gatsby-esque figure himself; and then there’s the movie’s official costume designer Ms Theoni V Aldredge, who picked up the Academy Award for her work and once fiercely defended her statue with the words: “[Ralph Lauren] thought he should’ve won an Oscar for loaning me a dozen shirts.” But such beautiful shirts they were! In any case, we prefer to think of it as a meeting of stylish minds who thought alike. Without one or the other, we wouldn’t have been treated to this paradigm of preppy summer style, and what is perhaps the best pulling-off of a white three-piece suit in cinematic history.

Mr Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time in Hollywood got a lot of flak when it was first released for being so-called “Oscar-bait”– neatly packaged to massage and placate the egos of Academy voters with dreams of Tinseltown’s supposedly forgotten grandeur. Also, there was the thing with the feet and the fact that the female characters spent most of their time dancing in slow motion rather than speaking or contributing meaningfully. But we digress. One thing that can’t be faulted is Ms Arianne Phillips’ evocative costumes, which capture the swaggering spirit of the 1970s without caricaturing it. Mr Brad Pitt’s open Hawaiian shirt, sun-bleached Champion tee and worn-out jeans combo might have spawned a thousand Halloween costumes, but it’s also a carefree standard to aim for throughout summer. Less attention is paid to Mr Leonardo DiCaprio’s wardrobe, but his poolside camp-collar numbers and ever-present tan leather outerwear is equally praiseworthy. 

If someone can point to any man who can wear an Oxford shirt better than Mr Armie Hammer, please do. Though we seriously doubt he exists. Since Call Me By Your Name’s release a few years ago, the film’s pastel-soaked, 1980s-lite wardrobe has served as the copybook for the idealised summer look. It’s a credit to director Mr Luca Guadagnino and designer Ms Giulia Piersanti that the clothes play as much a role in characterisation here as each and every longing stare shared between Elio and Oliver: the former’s roomy, ill-fitting polo shirts signifying his youth and inexperience and the latter’s chino shorts and unbuttoned button-downs nodding to his Ivy League-learned conservatism. If you’re seeking out further summery references, see also Ms Piersanti’s and Mr Guadagnino’s work on _A Bigger Splash. _

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