While it’s spring in Tokyo and the cherry trees are abloom with their beautiful flowers that live not days but moments, over here we’re desperately trying to hide from the heat that is everywhere in the air, on the ground, on our skin.

Shall I compare thee

To a summer’s day?

Thou art fairer

Than the darling buds of May.

Unfortunately for us, Shakespeare’s May may not necessarily be our kind of May, historically a season of rain and even typhoons.

For now, in the summer of 2026, with temperatures hovering between 39 and 42 degrees C, let us thank the celebrities and newsmakers for showing us how to wear summer appropriately, complete with dark glasses. What’s fashionable about a public figure — a Very Important Politician, if you will — who wears a jacket in very hot weather? Just as you will not see a fashion model wearing a long formal gown when she turns out the lights to go to sleep, why would normally sensible people torture themselves and those they interact with by donning a padded jacket lined in silk, in broad daylight? Somebody, help!

Those people should take their cue from PBBM. The President does not have to be a fashion plate to know that a sensible person does not wear a padded jacket when mornings feel like high noon and the high temperatures do not end after lunchtime. Public Works Secretary Vince Dizon is another smart dresser, one who knows that his work — mostly outdoors, to inspect projects — dictates what he wears, and that means cotton shirts in white, or light colors.

Once upon a time I had a boss who carried two spare sets of his “uniform” in his car, so that as the day wore on and he wanted to look fresh as a daisy for cocktails or dinner, all that was needed was a costume change.

My present boss used to play basketball on the home court after office hours with the guys in the production department, which meant being able to take a shower and have a change of clothes before taking the guys out to dinner. For all that, the girls never complained, or at least I never heard them complain. Or did they, ECY3?