Last Chance Summer Outfits: Two Cotton Midi Skirts
Last September, I posted about the weirdness of September as the month marking the "beginning of fall" yet still feeling very summery in much of the Northern Hemisphere, including Minnesota:
September is a strange month! School is back in session, marking the unofficial end of summer for many people. The fashion world has turned hard core to fall clothing and outfits, urging us to shop for the cooler season. The pumpkin spice latte has returned to coffee shops, and the American football season begins. Meteorological fall starts on September 1 so that the year can be divided into 4 equally long 3 month seasons for the purpose of record keeping/statistics. Astronomical fall starts around September 22 with the autumnal equinox. September is when many of us start thinking about and even yearning for the fall...
And yet...it's not really fall weather-wise in September, not even in relatively cool spots like Minnesota! Even if temperatures have gone down relative to the summer peak, it's still fundamentally summery warm weather, and I don't think many of us are truly ready to pull out the cozy sweaters, boots, scarves, etc., of fall. Accordingly, I consider the month of September - and even into the first couple weeks of October, depending on what the weather does in a given year - my sartorial Summer/Fall transition season.
One thing I like to do in September is wear my "last chance" summer items/outfits before it cools down too much for them or the vibe just feels wrong. These are garments or combinations that are comfortable and on-point for warm weather but cannot easily be transitioned into fall.
The most common items to fall into this category are summer skirts with a woven material. But not all summer skirts! I have woven cotton skirts, both lined and unlined, that transition wonderfully into fall and even winter with tights! But I find that the woven cotton ones that work well in cold weather have a certain stiffness to them and tend to be shorter (within a few inches of the knee) so that they look right with tights and boots. (Obviously you can wear tights and boots with many kinds of longer skirts, but I personally like the "summer skirts in winter" to be shorter so that the tights/boots are more prominent in the look, if that makes sense.)
I have a couple of relatively new skirts that are lightweight woven cotton midi skirts with a bit of flounce/drape that I view as strictly warm weather pieces to be worn with bare legs. I say "relatively new" because I purchased them in a late summer sale in 2024, when the prime period for wearing them was already passing. Then in summer 2025, I left my job and spent the entire summer in pants/shorts (often lounge or exercise wear) rather than skirts.
This summer, I reverted to my usual dressing style and did wear each of them multiple times, but the total wears count remains low. While these skirts will become high priority wear items for next summer (I love these skirts more with every wear so I am looking forward to it!), I did take advantage of the warm September weather to wear them each one last time for the season.
In addition to the fabric, style, and 100% spring/summer color scheme, the salmon pink floral skirt also suffers from the "no even vaguely mid or dark neutrals that straightforwardly support a tights color" problem, slotting it neatly into the warm weather only category. For this second day of astronomical fall outfit (a day with bright sunshine and a high of 69F/20.5C), I leaned hard into spring/summer styling with no apologies and no regrets. While it can absolutely be great to transition into fall early with jewelry or color, it's also perfectly fine to dress for the weather, not the date on the calendar.
Outfit #1: Salmon Pink Floral Skirt
I was fortunate that the coordinating top was available to make a matching set/two piece dress with the skirt, which I topped with a yellow-green-mint cardigan that I bought at deep discount from a different store at the end of last summer (also a high priority wear item for next summer). I am all over this combination, which I will be definitely be wearing again! These light but saturated colors with a warm undertone create nice harmony with my golden blonde hair and thus are a natural fit for me, and I am just crazy about light but vibrant green colors that can be described as "apple," "lime," "celery," "pear," or "tea" green.
I put together a simple 3 necklace layered look with a paper bead necklace, a paper pendant on a chain, and my trusty long gold tassel necklace (CPW 16 cents; 124 wears and counting!).
I designed the paper pendant specifically to coordinate with this blouse/skirt, using two floral greeting cards in the same set as my paper (they were freebies from a non-profit fundraising appeal in the mail). I wore the pendant with the side showed on top to the front, which is the most matching of the two sides, but I liked the idea of the bottom paper with the brown in it if I wanted to experiment with adding a bit of brown to an outfit with this skirt...perhaps my brown flats for a more grounded transitional look. {paper pendant/earrings tutorial}
My earrings are uncharacteristically subtle (white glass pearl studs with gold rabbit ear detail), but this photo gives you a better look at the paper bead necklace I made to coordinate with this blouse/skirt.
I wish I had taken a photo of the original paper, but I'm hoping you can see what I did here. This was a page from a Christmas toy catalog from Amazon that had orange around the edge (and the one toy), light blue in the girl's sweater, and green in another toy. To bring it more firmly into my color palette, I added acrylic paint in dark orange, sky blue/pale aqua, and light green to cover quite a lot of the original paper. I loved how the beads turned out! There are a bit more colors than in the blouse/skirt, but the dominant orange and green colors of the beads along with the white wood beads I used to space them plays back very well to the colors of the outfit.
For my all-DIY daily bracelet stack, I started with a new paper bead bracelet set...all together now...made to coordinate with this blouse/skirt. Sadly, I failed to photograph the paper I used to make them, but you can see I chose a color scheme of green, orange, mint, and yellow with gold as my metallic tone. Because the cardigan was a minty green color, I added 4 supplemental bracelets in shades of green to complete the stack. (I could get a nicely different look if I pulled in orange bracelets, or some of each color, instead of green.) {stretch bracelet tutorial} {bicone paper bead tutorial} {tube paper bead tutorial}
Outfit #2: Navy/Blue/Green Frond Skirt
Of course, I would have LOVED to be able to buy the matching top to create a set with the frond skirt, but I was not heartbroken to purchase it as a stand-alone piece because it has so many colors that are well-represented in my wardrobe, including that key dark neutral, navy. But for this look, I chose wear a coordinating but not matching color with this faded-look indigo blue linen top (that could also just about function as a neutral chambray/denim, I think). This lightweight combo of linen top + cotton skirt was just right for a mostly sunny day with a high temperature of 81F/27C.
Because my top was plain in color and design, I thought a print mix somewhere in the look was called for, and my old navy striped ballet flats were just right to add some low-key nautical summer vibe to the outfit.
My DIY necklace is a three-piece layered one that you will be absolutely shocked to learn I made to coordinate with this skirt, pulling out the navy, light blue, light green, and emerald green colors from the print with silver as my metallic tone.
These necklaces were made with various beads from my stash, not started with any particular bead box for once. I made it into a little collection by creating two coordinating pairs of earrings to go with it. There are a few pieces that had been in my stash for a while that I was happy to find a home in this set, including the green and light blue lampwork beads (which you can see well in the right pair of earrings) and the chunky navy stone bead (lapis lazuli, I think) that I used as the centerpiece for the pendant on the long (right-most) necklace. I am still a beginner when it comes to wirework, so I was very pleased with how well that pendant turned out; I added some swirl detail to the wire so it would look a little bit like waves (which doesn't relate to the skirt per se but has a nice aquatic summery feel). (Note: if the existence of "Silver Frond" set makes you wonder whether there is also a "Gold Front" set, you are on the right track.)
Another bracelet stack, another paper bead bracelet set made to coordinate with a piece from my wardrobe, but PLOT TWIST: the bracelets were designed for a navy, green, and cream-blush frond blouse (shown below) rather than this skirt. But with overlap in the colors, I thought it worked well in this outfit too. Bracelets in lapis lazuli, blue glass, dark green quartz, and white real pearls matched both the bracelet set and my skirt. {stretch bracelet tutorial} {bicone paper bead tutorial} {tube paper bead tutorial}
I am disappointed that I do not have page-to-bead images for the top paper bead bracelet (full page photo of trees/sky) or the bottom one (full page ad in Audubon magazine), but I do have the middle one! This was another "paint perfects the paper" situation because I started with a page from a Coldwater Creek catalog in beige and green but none of the navy or blue. But it's very easy to add some navy acrylic paint to bring the paper into my desired color palette and cover the text on the page. The paint added some wonderful texture to the rolled beads as well.
My DIY earrings are a fun pair that I made to go with that paper bead bracelet set, using white and green leaf print lightweight paperboard from another donation-enticing freebie, the cover of a little notebook from a nature-related non-profit. I jazzed them up a bit with silver leaf charms that quite closely match the look of the leaves on the paper.
Note: you could also punch a hole in the bottom of the paper form and dangle a charm below it, but I like the layered look of putting the charm over the paper (and this keeps the earring shorter, which I prefer). It's like even my earrings are wearing jewelry :D You could also use Jodie's friend's trick of putting both the paper earring and a separate charm earring in the same ear piercing to double up your earrings for a truly layered version (since the paper earrings are quite lightweight).
Do you have any skirts (or other pieces) that you wear only in the summer, not attempting to extend them into cooler weather? Would you wear either of these skirts in fall/winter? How would you wear them for those seasons?
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