It’s day two of the Paris men’s shows and already a lot of ink has been spilled about the heat wave. Complaints aside, in a city that is not exactly known for its central air, everyone is being forced to adapt. At least two labels have changed their showtimes to avoid the blistering afternoon sun. (Over in London, the Wimbledon qualifiers are facing similar conditions: The tournament will use a heat stress index to determine if there should be a break in the play.) Measures such as these help ease the stress of attendees bustling across the city from one appointment to the next, and hopefully help protect the models bunched backstage. Still it’s difficult not to feel warm looking at Connor Storrie’s latex socks or Yung Lean’s flushed cheeks in his suit and trench coat at the Saint Laurent show, even just through a screen.

Apart from celebrity styling, there are others who won’t, nay, can’t alter their style, even to beat the heat. It’s illogical and it’s certainly sweaty, and yet, these summer goths wouldn’t change a thing. In the high-fashion realm, these impractical hot-weather dressers are most commonly devotees to the Japanese avant garde—Noir Kei Ninomiya, Junya Watanabe, Comme des Garçons/Homme Plus, Yohji Yamamoto, and Issey Miyake. Many of these masters are known for their voluminous, and often heavy, shapes. Simone Rocha is also a favorite of vampy maximalists in the same vein.

Even when not opting for a cocooning frock, a wool Homme Plus blazer or an 100% polyester Pleats Please set doesn’t exactly inspire visions of a cool beach breeze, but the most stylish are also the most uncompromising. (This writer is currently sitting in the office in blue Pleats even though it’s in the mid-80s.) “I would probably never wear a pair of denim cut-offs or a white tank top or even a plain slip dress,” says writer Kristen Bateman, whose avant-garde layerings are often a highlight of fashion week’s street style. “It would feel unnatural for me.” Such limitations, however, encourage even further creativity, if you know how to style and where to look: “Why wear denim cut-offs when you can wear frilly ruffled culottes from Comme des Garçons?” Also, Bateman adds, “one of the only things I really love about summer dressing is that you can see jewelry better than you can in any other season, and it’s easier to wear tons of stacked bangles and bracelets due to arm exposure.”

Creator Kevin Wilson—who you might recognize as the “only dad on the playground wearing CDG”—has spent “a lot of time, effort, and money” to make sure he doesn’t have to compromise style for summer, and finds the “difficulty of summer dressing” to be a bit of a false stigma, even if he temporarily can’t sport his favorite blazer. “I genuinely think a lot of people claim not to enjoy summer dressing simply because they haven’t invested in pieces they actually love,” he says. At the end of the day, for Wilson, it all comes down to silhouette and materiality: “I’ve spent a good amount of time hunting down what I'd call statement shorts—most with dramatic pleats, or wide enough that they don’t graze the skin and allow for a real breeze.” Now, his collection of Japanese-designed shorts are an essential part of his closet rotations. Creative director, content creator, and head-to-toe black outfit-wearer Elysia Berman doesn’t change her ways when the mercury rises—just the materials. “In spring/summer I look to sheer fabrics that are a bit lighter both in color and texture, a bit more gauzy and diaphanous,” she says, noting Ann Demeulemeester, Rick Owens, and The Row as her favorites.

Be warned: Avant-garde summer dressing isn’t without its mishaps. Bateman can recall almost too many sweaty incidents to count. “I accidentally specialize in this,” she says. Immediately two metallic silver Simone Rocha dresses come to mind—“they basically heat me up like I’m inside an oven. Last summer I wore one of them with a pair of crystal plastic clogs from Balenciaga, it was one of my sweatiest outfits ever.” Not to mention, her vintage Prada mirror bag once blinded her husband while driving towards the afternoon sun. For all of the summer goths out there, always stay hydrated, always have shades for the sun glare, and when in doubt, always carry a hand fan!