Édit No. 58: 7 French Outfit Formulas for La Rentrée

I have always loved la rentrée. Perhaps partly because autumn is my favourite season, but also because I love the feeling of getting dressed again after summer. The weather becomes kinder to clothes. We can bring back little jackets, closed shoes, proper trousers and blazers, and eventually coats, the pieces that seem to give a silhouette shape almost without trying.

Summer has its own pleasure, of course. I quite like the little bit of letting go that comes with it: simpler clothes, less structure, days that do not always need a plan.

But by late August, I usually begin to crave a little structure again. Not the rigid sort. I do not particularly believe that September needs to become a month of perfect routines and relentless self-improvement. If anything, I have been thinking a lot lately about how we might make the return to everyday life feel a little more pleasurable rather than simply more efficient, and I have something special coming on Léonce Chenal around that idea soon.

Perhaps I am feeling that familiar pull towards September particularly strongly this year because I am writing to you from New York, where it is still decidedly summer.

And there is one very practical part of la rentrée that I thought I could make easier for you right now: getting dressed.

Because these first weeks can be oddly difficult. You may already be tired of your most summery clothes, while the weather is still far too warm for a proper autumn wardrobe. And as work, appointments, dinners and everyday routines begin to fill the calendar again, deciding what to wear every morning can become one more little decision you really do not need.

So rather than putting together seven pretty outfits to admire once and forget about, I wanted to give you something more useful.

Seven formulas simple enough to become reflexes.

I named each one after the kind of day it is meant to solve, rather than the clothes themselves; from the days when you need to look pulled together to the ones when getting dressed is the last thing you want to think about.

The idea is very simple: start with the kind of day you are having, choose the formula that fits, recreate it with the closest equivalents in your wardrobe, and adjust it for the weather or occasion. You should be able to open this Édit in the morning, glance at one formula, and get dressed.

You may even want to screenshot your favourites and keep them on your phone. These are not seven outfits to copy once, but seven combinations simple enough to become reflexes throughout the first weeks of autumn.