Your favourite beach cover ups will earn their keep long before you hit the sand. The ones you’ll grab again and again are the ones that excel at multiple shifts: thrown on over a bikini for the march down to the beach, then performing just as well when the sun sets and everyone’s hot, tired and hungry but no one wants to bother getting changed. It’s then that you know you’ve found a winner. If it can get you through THAT you’ll confidently send it into any battle. Forget how stunning it looks draped over your sun bed, think how it’ll fair when it’s battling real wind, real body movement, real salt water showering itself all over you.
Texture is everything.
Opt for linen or cotton gauze as both are lightweight, breathable and dry easily. Sounds over technical and basic until you’re halfway through a picnic and realise your cover up is half way to sweaty. Any fabric with give and fluidity as opposed to clinging tight to your figure is your new BFF. Your skin will thank you later for not being stuck to clingy viscose all day. Search for cover ups with some sort of built in structure too; a defined collar, sleeves that aren’t simply capes and hemlines that someone actually thought about creating.
They’ll still be lightweight but will feel more ‘effortless shirt’ less ‘beach towel trying to pass as shirt’. Speaking of shirts..
Styling them is fairly obvious. Throw a shirt style cover up on open over your bikini, rolled up sleeves for maximum cool or button up and pair with some flat sandals to throw on as a dress for that walk to the cute cafe around the corner.
Throw a kaftan on and literally nothing else* and welcome to beach to restaurant dressing at it’s finest. (*maybe add some thin gold jewellery and a woven tote.) Everyone will be too busy wondering where you’re off to sans swimsuit that they won’t realise you were just swimming all morning. Sarong style wraps are a tad trickier to master at tying but will look more fitted to you for it and are 100% worth the extra few seconds.
Cover ups are genius for those in between moments. That hour in-between pool lounging and making your way to the breakfast buffet. That walk along a boardwalk when wearing only swimsuits makes you feel uncomfortable. That boat ride where you find yourself shedding and putting on layers all afternoon. They’re not quite for sport at the beach, they’re more about the in between things that make beach culture what it is. Doesn’t that sound like a better job than just looking hot in your closet?
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