Great Beach Style Is About More Than Swim Trunks

In my head, this was going to be a lighthearted take on the best outfits to wear to the beach this summer before I gradually realized the current situation likely isn't letting up anytime soon and living my life in complete denial might not be the best way to cope (in my defense: it's worked in the past). I'll admit, I was ready to throw my hands up in defeat when it dawned on me that the area of overlap in the Venn Diagram of Ideal Beach Looks and Appropriate WFH Fits is probably pretty substantial. (Yes, I'm real proud of myself for making that extremely tenuous connection seem somewhat concrete.) Well, you lucked out, buddy. It's a content combo-pack!

At home, as at the beach, the best possible outfit involves covering way more of your body than you initially imagined. The trick to really leveling up your beach style this summer? While everyone else treats the excursion as an excuse to wear as little clothing as possible, you take the trip as yet another opportunity to flex literally the only thing you have: a second-to-none collection of fire fits.

Hitting the beach in style is about way more than picking the shoes least likely to get sand stuck in them and calling it a day. Yes, you should definitely be investing in a solid pair of water-resistant shorts (they don't even have to be swim trunks!) but that doesn't mean they're the only thing you should be bringing. In fact, the beach is the perfect place to bust out the summer wardrobe heavy hitters - the polo with a bit too much personality to wear to work, the linen pants you love but are too self-conscious to rock regularly, the espadrilles you picked up once in Spain that feel too, well, beach-y, to wear anywhere else. Show up in one of your best summer ensembles yet and watch as every other dude around you slowly realizes they could've skipped all those hours spent hitting arms by hitting the "add to cart" button instead.

Suckers.