If I’ve learnt one thing in the past 18 months of working at Citizen Femme, it’s how much we care about what we wear on holiday.
Our destination-led shopping edits are top performers for us – lots of you think long and hard about what to pack in your suitcase, whether you’re going to Paris on a city break or to Italy for a wedding.
Resortwear – clothes designed to be worn on holiday – is a booming business. There are hundreds of articles dedicated to the art of packing. The global resortwear market was valued at $25.98 billion (£19 billion) in 2025 and is expected to reach $45.19 billion (£33.2 billion) by 2034, according to Custom Market Insights. Hotel gift shops are increasingly destinations in their own right, and ever enticing to luxury brands keen to collaborate. Loewe’s Paula’s Ibiza pairing, which first launched in 2017 has now become a sub line in its own right. Look at any luxury multi-brand retailer and you’ll find a vacation tab, full of sunshine-ready pieces claiming to enhance your holiday experience. The perfect capsule packing wardrobe is today a key part of the marketing calendar for most fashion brands, as vital as party dressing at Christmas or outerwear in September.
Jane one-shoulder top, £458, Posse
Linen, raffia and crochet – aesthetic details that might not appear regularly in your day-to-day life – might all of a sudden feel appealing as soon as the countdown for a trip begins. When it comes to packing, we don’t just think about the practicalities – the temperature or nature of the trip – it’s also emotional. We might collectively be travelling more than we ever have done before, but leaving our lives behind and escaping from it all for a week or two is still exciting, so it would follow that we want what we wear to reflect that sunnier, lighter side of ourselves. I have known editors who live by sartorial minimalism at home, but turn into boho queens as soon as they step off the plane. I am highly susceptible to summer dresses at the best of times, but they take on a more exaggerated, wafty, floor-sweeping guise on holiday. I don’t dress up for dinner at home in London, but I love the process of doing exactly that when I’m abroad. According to fashion psychologist Shakaila Forbes-Bell, none of this is unusual. “Research suggests that clothes allow us to navigate between different versions of ourselves,” she explains. “Your ‘holiday self’ is different from your ‘at-home self’, and as a result, you use your wardrobe to express this extension of your identity.”
What we need from our clothes when we travel differs from at home. Practicality matters less when all you’re doing is basking on the beach or strolling around a city. Comfortable shoes are a non-negotiable for me wherever I am, but swapping my roomy leather Strathberry tote for a playful basket bag signals to me that a vacation has begun. There is a deeper reason why a lot of resortwear is led by bold prints and joyful colours; sometimes a few tweaks to our sartorial formula can feel like a break in itself. “Holidays allow us to experience escapism from the routine and monotony of our daily lives, and more adventurous styles allow the same, so we simply lean into this when on holiday,” adds Forbes-Bell. “The fact that we become more anonymous away from home provides us the freedom to be more exploratory with our styles without the fear of knowing eyes potentially judging us.”
Social media also plays a part in why our holiday wardrobe has added significance today. Rightly or wrongly, Instagram and TikTok has meant that how we are seen when we’re on vacation has dialled up the pressure in packing photogenic outfits. “Social media has increased the desire to curate the perfect holiday shot which means more thought and planning goes into what we wear when we’re there,” says Forbes-Bell.
As with anything that it is aggressively marketed at us, it is of course worth thinking with a considered eye at whether we really want or are excited by that pompom-covered kaftan – or whether we’re just getting carried away with a brand campaign that our algorithm keeps pushing. There’s nothing wrong with digging out a beautiful cover-up every time you go on holiday or keeping a dress stored for special trips away – these traditions become part of the magic of travelling – but none of us need a whole drawer dedicated to items that felt right in the context of a trip but jarring outside of it. Don’t buy anything that you wouldn’t feel comfortable wearing more than once – repeat-wearing is an almost rebellious act in an Instagram era that insists that every day should come with yet another grid-friendly look. What we pack can put us in the right state of mind for any given holiday.
The secret is taking pieces you feel excited to wear – that could be a linen kaftan or your favourite jeans. There’s also a satisfaction in at least most of your holiday wardrobe working in your ordinary life too. I love wearing my flip-flops with a pair of wide-leg trousers at home for OOO energy. It might be cloudy, but our clothes have the power to bring the vacation to wherever we are.
Ella Alexander is Citizen Femme’s fashion features editor. She started her career at the Evening Standard, and has since held senior editorial roles at Vogue, The Independent and Harper’s Bazaar, where she remains a contributing editor. She also writes for The Telegraph, Sunday Times Style, Service95 and CNN. She is an author, having co-written Dame Zandra Rhodes’ memoir, Iconic: My Life In Fashion In 50 Objects, published by Transworld in July 2024. Her favourite travel destination is Catania, Sicily’s second city.
Lead image: Boteh
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