Some Fun Summer Outfit Updates

Easy breezy looks to change up your wardrobe (and more!)

Memorial Day has come and gone, and now is the perfect time to take a hard look at our closets and our preconceived notions about the morality of Israel’s military campaign RIGHT as we approach the summer months! So let’s dive in!

• White Shirt Dress and Ballet Flats

Such a classic! To give this obvious pairing more modern styling, keep the silhouette relaxed, the length below the knee and pair it with Mary Jane flats. A tip! Make sure your dress is lined, because summer downpours can quickly make the entire thing flimsy and humiliating. A little bit like the illogical thinking needed to see the strikes in Rafah and double down and say, “This is only Hamas’s fault” as the IDF rained hellacious death on sheltering children.

When the original sin of October 7th is used to justify burning babies in their sleep, and when the enmeshment of Hamas soldiers in and next to safe zones means the IDF is unbound by the rule of international law, then the only moral code is total annihilation in the name of self-preservation. This is myopic at best and neck-breakingly illogical at worst.

If we are blaming Hamas for anything the Israeli army does in Gaza, that is carte blanche for Israel to commit war crimes under the banner of a greater moral good. If you think Israel is made stronger and the hostages are made safer, and Jews in the world are more warmly embraced by their diaspora countries from this IDF campaign, you might as well roam the city barefoot and say any cuts on your feet are caused by Hamas.

This one from G. Label is somehow roomy and flattering, proving two seemingly oppositional things can be true! I’d bet my life there’s a Zara version of the same thing.

Le Monde Beryl makes thin-soled flats that don’t hurt or fall apart. This is not a metaphor it is just an attribute I like about these, which I have in black leather but am considering in denim on sale.

• Black Linen Shift Dress and Brown Sandals

This is my go-to outfit for “day to night” when it’s going to be hot until after dark. Keeping the accessories beige or brown keeps it from looking too formal for day, but a black shift ends up being versatile enough for even an 8pm curtain. It also looks great while stepping back from the “squint and tilt your head and try to see this satellite image of munitions in Rafah on an Instagram account called ISREAL WAR ROOM” justifications for the massacre.

If you are saying the IDF did not strike inside the Al-Mawasi humanitarian zone, but rather, ONE MILE away from it and then shrug your shoulders at how a tent city 180 meters (METERS!) from “where Gazans had chosen to shelter” could have gone up in flames, ask yourself how safe you would feel if the Army dropped warheads 180 meters from your child’s summer camp cabin because known terrorists were hiding out in the New Hampshire woods?

“That would never happen,” one might say, “Because there are children there.”

I’ve worn this J. Crew dress at least once a week and it’s less than $50 on sale.!

Maryam Nassir Zadeh does not miss. I can’t walk in a tiny heel so this one clomps nicely while giving you a little height to offset the shape of the dress.

• An A-Line Skirt and Coordinating Top

This is my favorite hot weather outfit for daytime. Matching separates can be tricky in the age of Kardashian athleisure, but keeping the skirt voluminous and the shirt tailored is an easy way to suddenly be very “Joan Didion in Cuba.” Also, saying “None of us are okay with this,” and “Of course we hate Bibi,” and “We mourn the loss of any innocent civilians,” while excusing the bombing by insisting that Rafah housed Hamas leaders and there were rockets fired from the refugee camps is to justify the slaughter of children by claiming their proximity to the completely enmeshed terrorist organization you are hoping the IDF eliminates, knowing the only way the IDF can eliminate Hamas militarily is by killing more civilians.

This is not a precision war. And these are not “unfortunate mistakes.” This is a bombing campaign that is indiscriminate even when it is insisting it tried its very best to discriminate, and it is becoming the recruitment tool for the very army the IDF seeks to destroy. By crowing “Hamas could end this by releasing the hostages,” is to tsk tsk the burning children and excuse them as collateral in the name of a greater good.

If you are saying “Of course it is always a shame when civilians die,” then say for it to stop. Then stop killing civilians. Then stop setting babies on fire. Because there are no military strategies that can be justified when children are on fire. And if you haven’t said it yet, or if you haven’t thought it yet, then it is time to see it now, and say it now. The children are on fire. Cease the fucking fire.