From the Riviera to Right Now: The Evolution of Resort Wear

The Birth of the Between Season

Resort wear didn't emerge from necessity. It was born from abundance: specifically, the 1920s habit of wealthy Europeans and Americans wintering on the Côte d'Azur when everyone else stayed home. Resort wear history begins not with practicality but with the radical notion that one needed an entirely separate wardrobe for doing very little in warm places. Jean Patou and Coco Chanel dressed women who spent January in Monte Carlo, and the clothes reflected a new ease—softer tailoring, lighter fabrics, trousers that weren't scandalous. The tan, once a mark of the labouring classes, became chic. Everything changed.

The Golden Age: 1930s Through 1960s

By the 1930s, resort collections had calcified into their own calendar slot. Claire McCardell brought American sportswear sensibility to the genre, designing wrap dresses and playsuits that worked as well in Palm Springs as they did poolside in Miami Beach. The clothes were uncomplicated, packable, and genuinely comfortable—qualities that would prove more revolutionary than any hemline.

Post-war, resort wear became aspirational theatre. Emilio Pucci's kaleidoscopic prints turned the resort wardrobe into something you'd actually want to be photographed in, while his silk jersey pieces folded into nothing—crucial for the jet set who actually jetted. The 1960s codified the look: shift dresses, oversized sunglasses, headscarves knotted just so. It was a uniform that telegraphed leisure as a lifestyle, not just a fortnight away.

What made this era significant in resort wear history wasn't just the clothes but the infrastructure around them. Department stores created dedicated resort shops each November. Magazines ran editorials showing women what to pack for Acapulco or Capri. The vocabulary was established: cover-ups, resort separates, travel coordinates.

The Democratization and Dilution

Resort wear began its slow slide into ubiquity in the 1970s and 80s. As air travel became accessible and package holidays proliferated, the exclusivity dissolved. Resort collections still appeared on runways, but the term itself became muddled—was it for actual resorts, or just warm weather? The specificity blurred.

By the 1990s, resort had become a commercial necessity more than a creative one. Brands needed product in stores during the November-December dead zone. The collections grew larger, the concept more elastic. Resort could mean anything from Versace's maximalist prints (still rooted in Italian coastal glamour) to high street interpretations that bore little relation to the Riviera.

The 2000s brought "cruise collections," a rebranding that fooled no one but sounded more democratic. These became some of fashion's most elaborate productions—Chanel staging shows in Cuba and Seoul, Dior in Marrakech—but the clothes themselves often felt disconnected from any actual travel.

Contemporary Resort: Travel Style Reclaimed

Today's resort wear has circled back to something closer to its origins, though the context has shifted entirely. The contemporary version acknowledges how people actually travel now:

• Elevated basics that transition: linen trousers that work on the plane and at dinner
• Technical luxury: cashmere hoodies, performance fabrics that don't look technical
• Versatile layering pieces: silk shirts, lightweight knits, overshirts
• Shoes that serve multiple purposes: minimalist sandals, clean trainers
• Accessories that organize and protect: quality leather goods, proper sun hats

The Instagram effect has created a new pressure—resort dressing as content creation—but the smartest brands resist the costume approach. Toteme and The Row offer resort-appropriate pieces that don't announce themselves. Their neutral palettes and precise cuts photograph well but don't scream "holiday wardrobe."

Resort wear history has always reflected who gets to travel and how they want to be seen doing it. The difference now is the audience. Where resort once meant a specific class traveling to specific places, it's been appropriated and reinterpreted. A Jacquemus micro-bag on a Greek island serves the same signaling function as a Pucci caftan did in 1965, just with a different visual language.

The core appeal remains unchanged: clothes that suggest you have somewhere warm to be, and the freedom to stay a while. Whether you're actually en route to Comporta or just want to look like you could be is, conveniently, beside the point.