EDITOR’S LETTER

Editor-In-Chief Farrah Storr on the transformative power of clothing, and how one piece might define your summer

…A single item of clothing that defines your summer, that is. From October until June, it waits patiently, sandwiched between coats and jumpers whose daily outings it watches with keen-eyed interest. And then, as the air gently warms, shoes give way to sandals and shoulders sink into their relaxed summer stance, it makes its grand entrance. At the turn of the millennium, I was 23-years-old, hell bent on a summer of casual encounters and nights that refused to end until daybreak. My companion for the ride: a simple red shift dress with spaghetti straps and decked out with dozens of tiny blue flowers. It had a delicacy that I did not and suggested a bookishness that I had long left behind. Yet somehow, the disconnect between the dress I wore and the person I believed I was suited me perfectly for that long blazing summer. It took me to parties where I danced on sofas and laughed until dawn. It took me deep into the arms of unsuitable lovers; it forged connections with other women, whose entry into my life began with the simple question: ‘Can I ask where you got your dress?’ but whose friendship has lasted for years. There is a picture of me in that dress, stood in the self-consciously insouciant way of the young. I am in an orchard somewhere deep in the Kent countryside; an exotic place for a townie like me, though only a few miles from where I now live. The man behind the camera lens was a friend who, by the time that summer drew to its end, had become my partner, and is now, many years later, my husband. The other day, as the air felt warm against my skin for the first time in months, I thought back to that dress. I pulled out boxes from the attic to see if I had sensibly locked it away with all the other memories from my life – old school reports, photo albums, birthday cards from loved ones. It was nowhere to be found. There is a sentimentality we have about words and images that we do not reserve for clothing, seeing them somehow as lesser gatekeepers of our memories. But we are wrong to do this. Certain items of clothing have walked with us during the most significant times of our life. Of course we only realise this when it is too late to retrieve them. In this issue of ELLE, we feature, as ever, hundreds of pieces of clothing, which will take you through your entire summer. From neat white separates as crisp as snow to bold, dramatic black dresses made for your inner summer goth. These are the clothes that will walk with you through summer 2021. Choose and cherish them wisely.

“There is always a single item of CLOTHING that defines your summer”