Get Comfy: The Season Stretches Before Us Like a Long Summer’s Day

I t’s now officially summertime, and the livin’ is officially easy. The coming of the summer solstice means that we can put away the blue pin - stripes for a few precious weeks, quit reading brooding Gothic novels on Saturdays and put on our best dressing-down duds and relax in depth.

OK, so the June gloom is still hovering--all those unseasonable-looking gray skies. Buck up. Try a few of these summer favorites on for size, and remember that beach weather is only days away.

HE: If there’s such a thing as a perfect summer day for me, it’s this: early morning golf followed by a big champagne brunch followed by a nap followed by an evening chili party (featuring peach ice cream) followed by a Monty Python film festival. Anything beyond that and you’ll die from pure sensory overload, believe me.

I see you wincing. You’re thinking, “How can he go through most of a day wearing those hideous golf clothes--the green pants with the little blue whales and the bubble gum pink shirt?” Not this linkster, m’dove.

Walk into your friendly neighborhood pro shop this summer, and you’ll find some of the best-designed sporting clothes around: muted colors and patterns, fine color coordination, drama without excessive flash.

Naturally, though, you’d want to change for chili and Monty Python. Those activities require a wet suit.

SHE: OK, I’ll play the perfect-summer-day game. For me, it’s up early for a three-mile walk on the beach (I climb out of a crystal-pink cotton gown and into a mint-pink jogging suit) and then home for a shower.

Then it’s out to breakfast (where I wear a black shorts and top combo, dramatic shades, straw hat with black scarf) and a little shopping. Later, some reading on the beach (my favorite bathing suit this season is the ladder-back number by Calvin Klein. I bought it in black and purple).

For evening: a sip of something cool at a bistro with a view (where I can be casual in pants and top or dress to-the-teeth in black linen and pumps). Afterward, an aperitif and the chance to dance.

HE: No nap? Geez, I feel so old . . .

Ah, but the perfect summer blues banisher is the single most marvelous garment in the world: the aloha shirt. It’s the one piece of clothing that says “I am not thinking about mortgages or my boss or the kids’ braces or cholesterol or nuclear winter or existential Angst or why the Angels trade away all their good guys. No, I’m wallowing shamelessly in a pretty world filled with ballpark hot dogs, cold Beck’s, World Cup fever, sailing, cruising up to San Luis Obispo with the top down and women in ladder-back bathing suits.”

Sure, that’s a lot for a shirt to say, but your basic aloha shirt is a lotta shirt. Breezy, light, so comfortable it ought to be illegal, it’s the perfect excuse to wear the world’s brightest colors on your bod.

Let me tell you, your day starts out right when you open your closet and see a line of aloha shirts stretching to the horizon.

SHE: As if our readers didn’t know that you worship those flower splattered numbers! All right. They’re you.

But my very favorite summer look on a guy is a pair of light khaki slacks worn with a gauzy white shirt that is open at the neck. Please, no chains.

The summer fashion prop I can’t live without? The little top. Crop tops look hip with pants, shorts and skirts (all you need is a rippling midriff). And wrap tops--Moschino has made some for the season--can spruce up a pair of faded jeans like nothing else.

Two of my favorites toppers this season: a Calvin Klein transparent black silk shirt that looks great with a blazer and a longish crop top (thank goodness) with a basket weave hem by Tahari.

HE: I’ll go for that white gauzy shirt business, but you’ve gotta watch that color in the summer. Too much white can make you look like a Kentucky colonel on Derby day.

A particular sin: white dress shoes. Especially white patent leather dress shoes. Sorry, guys, they still look silly.

The all-white suit can also be a trap. I wanted one very badly a few years ago--it even had a double-breasted vest, which I figured would make me look like I owned a hotel in Barbados--but I passed.

Good thing, too. Bright white makes a light-complexioned guy like me look cadaverous, and just try to get through a day without smudging some part of the suit. You can’t even sit on an outdoor bench. The cleaning bill alone would have sent me to debtor’s prison.

SHE: I found a wrap dress at Jaeger in South Coast Plaza last week that is going to become my summer staple. It’s a black and white floral with flutter sleeves that is at once feminine and comfortable. I see myself cruising the Greek Islands in it . . . oops. There I go with the Fantasy Thing again.

All right, I plan to wear it to a good friend’s baby shower later this month. And if I’m lucky, out dancing some hot summer night. Cha-cha-cha.