Around the world, climates that were once comfortably temperate, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, are getting warmer and more humid. Summer 2025 was hot — hotter than ever, but are our clothes ready to beat the heat?

In 2020, the U.S. National Climate Assessment reclassified New York City from a coastal temperate zone to a humid subtropical climate zone. Now, the city is feeling it like never before, hit with a June heatwave that clocked in as the hottest day since July 2012, according to the National Weather Service.

As the last century of human activity has warmed the planet at an unprecedented rate, fashion’s attempts to address the growing need for temperature regulation have not only fallen short but have added to the crisis. Brands still largely rely on fossil fuel-based textiles to manufacture cooling and moisture-wicking apparel, releasing harmful emissions into the atmosphere during manufacturing and shedding microplastics into the ocean over time.

While revolutionizing our dress habits may not be the ultimate solution to address planetary warming, the current reality calls for climate-conscious fashion on multiple levels. On one hand, brands should mitigate the environmental implications of their manufacturing processes, and on the other hand, they must account for the wearer’s needs as the climate shifts.

Beyond broadening bio-based alternatives to polyester, understanding heat-conscious dress from equatorial climates can unlock important insights. Unlike NYC, which has seen temperatures rise over a matter of decades, historically tropical cultures have been shaped by their hot climates all year round for millennia.

Cloth as Clothing

In Are Clothes Modern (1947), renowned design historian Bernard Rudofsky wrote that in ancient times, “cloth was clothing itself” and “material and end-product were identical.” He goes on to describe an early garment that survives today in South and Southeast Asia: the “sarong” in Malay, “malong” in Filipino, “dhoti” in Hindi, and the “lungi” in Urdu, among other names.

“The square or rectangular piece was hung from or wrapped around the body and secured with detachable pins. As there was no desire for tightness, no fitting and, therefore, no cutting was necessary,” Rudofsky added.

1. Illustration of Filipinos wearing malongs (circa 1835-1840), 2. Illustration of Indians wearing a dhoti and sari (1858).

Researcher and founder of South Asia Archive, Sanam Sindhi, expanded on the garment’s significance, “The lungi, which is also known as veshti [Sri Lanka] or mundu [Kerala], depending on which part of South Asia you are in, is such an extraordinary garment because of its sheer simplicity. Like a sari, it’s a single unstitched piece of cloth that, when tied in a specific way, becomes a beautiful, functional garment suitable for literally any occasion. ”

This “sheer simplicity” of the design poses a challenge to Western notions of innovation, focused on technical complexity and synthetic production. “In the West, the idea of utility and workwear might bring to mind pockets, uniforms, military or hiking gear, but in the East, the framework for what makes a garment utilitarian is prodded, collapsed, and built anew,” Sindhi explained.

She highlighted that South Asia is a region where dress has always been dictated by climate. Tropical climates, characteristic of countries like Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan, have influenced the adoption of cooling materials like linen and heat-conscious garment construction techniques.

“It’s less about the garment itself and more about the space between the garment and the body, or the body’s response to the garment and vice versa.”

The Question of Appropriation

While many in the West may perceive the sarong as a mere ceremonial garment, the silhouette is a fixture of daily life in many South and Southeast Asian countries. Chris Fussner, designer and founder of Tropical Futures Institute, shared, “It’s a piece I grew up wearing at home in Singapore because it was always around me. You would see it worn both casually and ceremonially. I saw it a lot in the Malay and Indonesian communities.”

In the postcolonial era, many cultural garments are inevitably linked to layered histories of liberation, making mainstream commercialization a sensitive topic. Today, the mere mention of cultural inspiration inevitably sparks dialogue about appropriation, and communities are increasingly demanding co-authorship in the reproduction of their heritage.

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Sindhi sees the SS26 men’s season in June as a prime example of the Global South’s sartorial influence in contemporary fashion, identifying North African and South Asian styles in shows by Armani, Prada, Louis Vuitton, and Kenzo.

Netizens also took notice of these cultural inspirations, sparking online discourse regarding the appropriation of traditional Indian styles at luxury price points. For example, Louis Vuitton’s Autorickshaw bag drew criticism for its $40,000 USD price tag. Elsewhere, Dior drew criticism for copying the country’s Kolhapuri sandals without proper credit.

“We saw a similar surge in globalization in the ’90s and early 2000s, but we didn’t exactly have the socioeconomic power to talk back and stake our claim then. That’s what’s different this time around,” Sindhi said. However, both the researcher and the designer see an opportunity in this moment, mentioning Dries Van Noten‘s recent “hip-scarf” spin on the sarong with praise. Sindhi even described the interpretation as “quite romantic” and “poetic”.

Perhaps it is a futile effort to pinpoint inspiration for a garment that has a multitude of forms across the globe. Upon the release of Tropical Futures Institute‘s Digital Moodboard Sarong, Fussner himself wrote, “It’s a piece of clothing that spans across the tropics—from Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Africa. Its name, the weaves, designs, and ways we tie this garment change from place to place”.

Fashion’s Tropical Horizon

Sindhi doubly emphasized the necessity of going beyond the Eurocentric perspective. “We will have to shed our preconceived Western notions of utility or innovation, or even what we think we know about clothing, and really look to indigenous and traditional cultures around the world.”

Fussner is among the many South and Southeast Asian designers giving this traditional garment a new life from a culturally rooted perspective. Since 2020, his brand has released multiple sarongs printed with contemporary artwork inspired by his affinity for digital aesthetics.

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While acknowledging the sensitivities of Western appropriation, he sees it as a “net-positive.” “What we can do is flip it and help shine light on young designers in the region who are already innovating,” Fussner said. “There are some amazing concepts in the Philippines, from designers like Carl Jan Cruz, who play with traditional silhouettes and garments”.

Beyond the sarong silhouette, the designer also pointed to the use of piña fabric in the Philippines. The sheer, lightweight, organza-like material is traditionally used for formal garments such as the similarly named barong. Fussner explained that “the mesh construction of piña has fantastic cooling properties, allowing air to pass through and creating a feeling of breathability.”

The Manila-based designer Carl Jan Cruz, known for his roomy, deconstructed silhouettes, offers yet another example of how traditional garments are evolving — bringing abstract embroideries, patchwork, and new shapes to the barong and pambahay (house clothes). Much like a sarong, Cruz’s Pambahay collection is meant to be worn “front-to-back and inside-out” — modular garments that can be worn in any desired way.

As the efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change continue to be outpaced by its progression, people around the world are adopting new ways to stay cool during the hottest months — from the proliferation of handheld electric fans in NYC to the virality of the “Beijing Bikini” meme, which has seen men with their shirts turned up and bellies exposed.

While these makeshift solutions are making waves as internet memes, they also clarify something important: fashion is still lagging in addressing the need to cool down on an increasingly hot planet. Last year was already the hottest year in recorded history, breaking the record set in 2023, according to NASA. By 2027, the increasing level of greenhouse gas emissions is expected to increase Earth’s average temperature by 1.5 degrees Celsius—a figure that has come to represent the point of no return.

“The sartorial culture of the Global South is actually exceptional because of its balanced and original approach to both form and function. In a future where we will all have to be a bit more concerned with survival over style, we can take notes from these cultures to understand how to do both,” Sindhi concluded.