FREDERICTON — Dressing for the summer to stay and look cool involves more than picking out a white T-shirt and shorts. Choosing the right fabric, according to experts in fashion and dermatology, is about a breezy fit, and remembering to hydrate. Henry Navarro, associate professor at Toronto Metropolitan University's school of fashion, stresses the need to use multiple forms of protection against the sun and heat, including to choose long, loose clothing, wear a hat and carry an umbrella for shade.
"There's no silver bullet to protect against the heat and sun," he said in an interview Wednesday, but he adds that North Americans can learn about staying cool from dress traditions in warm and humid countries. "We can learn (from) historically proven ways to cope with different environments." Navarro traces the trend of stripping down in the summer to the 1950s in North America and Europe, when there was a "sudden appearance of leisure time for the middle class.
" Middle class families started having disposable income, and along with that came summer activities such as barbecuing and lounging by the pool with uncovered legs and arms. "And it started this kind of movement of shedding clothes during the summer." But hotter regions of the world dress traditionally — covering up to keep out the sun's rays and stay cool, he said.
Navarro, who grew up in the Caribbean, said people wear loose, linen clothing in light colours to ensure they stay comfortable in humid heat, and also prot.
