The Summer Clothes I Actually Wear When No One Is Watching

Opting out of the performance, and into clothes (and relationships) that function.

My bridal shower crew, the ones who could make it: intimate and happy, friends from every era of my life. My favorite part of this picture is Meg’s eyeballs, Where’s Waldo style.

HEY Y’ALL. I’m back in the city for the week after a long break that included my bachelorette and bridal shower. I’m thrilled to be returning to you all. Thanks a million for letting me pass the mic to some wonderful friends’ voices in my absence. (Thank you again to

Kaitlin Phillips

,

Noora Raj Brown

,

tariro makoni

, and

John Jannuzzi

.)

It seems to me that many people are sensing a vibe shift this summer — as in, the vibes aren’t great.

There’s a lot of friction in the air. Everything feels slightly adversarial, from group chats to grocery store lines. Even TikTok, which usually serves up a carousel of starry-eyed girls romanticizing the mundane, has soured. Every time I open it lately, someone is complaining about The Hamptons: the pricing, the posturing, the pressure. It’s giving burnout. It’s giving, “Why did I come out here if I still feel like I have to compete for peace?”

But my experience is different. I go for the people I love, the quiet corners, and the chance to feel like a human being instead of a highlight reel. The Hamptons, for me, are a panacea, not a performance.

I get why it can go left. It’s easy to get swept up in the metrics of a good summer: the parties, the right restaurant reservation, the way you feel about yourself in a swimsuit. And if you’re cycling through social media’s greatest hits in service of your Instagram Story, the entire season can start to feel like one extended audition. But the beach, in its best form, is not a stage. It’s a sanctuary.

Still, the instinct to over-optimize dies hard. A few weeks ago, I found myself melting down over the logistics of my bridal shower; not because I cared about the napkins or the gifts, but because the whole thing started to feel like a referendum on my worth.

I was bending over backward to make everything easy for everyone else, to minimize friction, to keep the peace. And when that effort wasn’t met with the same consideration in return, I cracked. I cracked big. I had a severe panic attack the morning before the very dinner we were all there for and almost canceled it entirely. Two days later, I had another panic attack that was bad enough to admit me. I spent the days following agonizing over what had gone so wrong with my brain.

I wasn’t just planning an event, I was unconsciously auditioning to be loved.

That moment forced a reckoning. How much of my life have I spent being helpful instead of held? Being impressive instead of at ease? How often have I felt like I have to do something to be invited, included, remembered?

It’s disorienting, honestly… to step out of the dance and realize how quiet things get. At first, the silence feels like abandonment. Like: If I stop doing, will anyone come toward me? Will anyone even notice? Some of the people who should reach out the fastest have been the quietest.

But then comes the softer knowing: If they don’t, they were never really with me, just with the version of me who kept things running, the one who did stuff for them, who invited them places, who introduced them to people, who took labor off their plate and put it on my own.

That realization hurts. But it also frees you. Because suddenly you’re not trying to maintain a connection that only exists when you’re over-functioning. You’re not mistaking usefulness for intimacy. You’re no longer proving your value through effort.

And what’s left, once the performance drops, is something more honest; more vulnerable, yes, but more whole.

You can sit in your own beach house, full of guests, without managing the mood. You can ask people to show up for you without doing something to compel them. You can say, 'I want this to be beautiful and soft and mine,’ and not apologize for wanting it. And you can make peace with the people who create pain by knowing you have the power to lower the energy you give them from now on, if not remove it altogether.

That’s been my unlock at least. What was supposed to be a summer of celebration has turned into a summer of recalibration. For me, that’s the real vibe shift. It’s not about aesthetics. It’s about enoughness. About letting this season — this year, this version of myself — be one where being worthy doesn’t require doing.

So I’ve made up my mind that the rest of this summer at the beach has become my antidote to that. Not because it’s beautiful (though it is), but because it’s the one place I’ve stopped trying to earn my right to exist in the room.

For the next few months, I'm trying to let softness be the standard. I’m allowing myself to receive, not in exchange for anything, but simply because I’m allowed to. I want a life where my worth is measured less by what I produce or how well I’m perceived.

And the truth is, once you stop hustling for belonging, the peace starts creeping back in.

So this isn’t a capsule wardrobe story; it isn’t about polish or uniformity. It’s about the real clothes and people that swaddled me.

For the past few weeks, getting dressed has been an act of survival and a hierarchy of comfort. I came home this week and purged anything from my wardrobe (and my life) that felt restrictive, confusing, or just “off.”

I’ve never really dressed for the algorithm. I rarely publish photos of myself online. But this is the truth of what’s out on my vanity and piled on my bedroom floor right now, simply because it’s what I use. It’s worth sharing the true things that make me feel like I can face the world on a hot day when I need to feel safe. Because in my real life, I’m happiest in proximity to water, a farm stand, and a dozen oysters.

These are the items that don’t ask anything of me: to be thinner, to be cooler, to over-function or over-think. They repeat easily, require minimal care, and remind me that with a few nice things, I can do a lot. In truth, I don’t need that much stuff.

Look—clothes as a metaphor for life!

Below are nine outfits I genuinely live in, whether anybody’s seeing me or not.

P.S., Worth noting that I wrote this in collaboration with my therapist, Dr. Madison, who helped me hone in on the language of my specific feelings. Therapy forever.