The Summer Edit Starts With What People Already Ordered
There’s a specific kind of shopping that happens in May – not aspirational browsing, not wishlist-building, but actual purchasing driven by the first real heat of the year. The Refinery29 editorial team’s latest monthly roundup, R29 Loves, captures exactly that: a June-facing collection of fashion and beauty buys that editors picked for themselves first and are recommending second. No concept boards, no trend forecasting language. Just the things that ended up in carts and stayed there.
This month’s list spans a surprisingly wide range – a sneaker-stiletto hybrid that shouldn’t work but apparently does, a garden-inspired fragrance, a brow tinted gel that rerouted one editor’s entire thinking on the category, and a white maxi skirt that Alexis Bennett Parker, the outlet’s Director, plans to wear from airport sidewalks to sit-down dinners.
Summer shopping, when it’s honest, looks like this.
The Skirt That Earns Its “Versatile” Label
White maxi skirts have cycled in and out of summer wardrobes for decades, but the Free-est Swept Away Maxi Skirt is the specific version Bennett Parker is backing this season. Her reasoning is practical: the flowy design reads as dressed-up when paired with kitten heels for formal occasions and casual enough alongside sneakers for a day of sightseeing while traveling. That’s a genuine range of use that most single garments don’t cover without awkwardness.
The style is described as dreamy and comfortable – two qualities that usually cancel each other out in summer fashion, where comfort tends to mean shapeless and dreamy tends to mean impractical. A flowy maxi in white manages both because the silhouette does the visual work while the fabric and cut allow for movement. Bennett Parker is already planning her summer travel wardrobe around it, which is the kind of commitment that means something beyond editorial enthusiasm.
It’s also worth noting that this is a white piece she’s calling a wardrobe staple rather than a special-occasion item. That framing matters – white clothing requires a certain confidence in daily use, and recommending it as the backbone of a summer travel wardrobe says something about how wearable the actual construction is.
Heat, Humidity, and the Products Built for Both
The broader R29 Loves May edit addresses something the beauty industry has been slow to fully absorb: summer skin and summer makeup require different products, not just lighter versions of year-round ones. The roundup includes moisturizers described as luxe alongside makeup specifically selected for performance against heat and humidity. Those aren’t the same as SPF-labeled swaps or mattifying primers – they’re products chosen because they behave differently when the temperature rises.
The brow product inclusion is the most specific signal here. One editor noted it changed how she thinks about tinted gels as a category – not just her preference within the category, but her understanding of what the category can do. That’s a meaningful distinction. Tinted brow gels are a crowded segment, and most releases don’t shift how anyone thinks about them. When one does, it’s usually because the formula does something the standard versions don’t: holds longer, builds more naturally, or sits on the skin differently in warm weather.
The roundup also includes what the team calls “little luxuries” – a phrase that usually signals fragrance or bath products, and in this case includes a garden-inspired scent that fits the aesthetic mood of early summer without requiring a full perfume commitment. Fragrance in summer is its own category of decision-making, where projection and longevity shift dramatically with body heat.
Impulse Purchases That Became Permanent
One of the more honest admissions in the R29 Loves format is the inclusion of items the editors describe as impulse purchases that “quickly earned permanent spots” in their routines. That arc – from impulse to permanent – is the actual story of how most people build their beauty and fashion habits, and it’s more useful information than a straight recommendation because it tells you something about staying power.
The May edit also highlights what the team is calling transitional travel staples, which is a category that doesn’t get enough attention in summer fashion coverage. Travel-specific dressing sits in a strange middle zone: it needs to survive transit conditions, photograph well at the destination, and function across climates. A white maxi skirt with sneakers on one end and kitten heels on the other is exactly the kind of piece that solves that equation without requiring a separate travel capsule.
All products in the roundup are independently selected by the Refinery29 editorial team, with the outlet noting it may earn commission on purchases made through its links. Prices and availability reflect the time of publication.
The sneaker-stiletto hybrid is the detail that keeps pulling attention – a shoe that combines two silhouettes that have historically defined opposite ends of the dress code. Whether that design holds up to actual wear across a full summer, or whether it’s the kind of purchase that photographs well and then sits in a closet by August, is the question none of the recommendations can answer yet.
