Words by Heather Gwyther

In spite of the fun it signifies, holiday dressing can be oddly stressful. The fact that you should probably be wearing swimwear (although skinny dipping is always acceptable) when in a body of water – be it the vast expanse of the ocean or a swimming pool – is an easy enough concept to grasp, but what happens afterwards?

Hopefully, it will be warm enough for you to just sit there in your bikini basking in the sunshine, but you may well be shivering. And while you could get ahead and put on what you planned to wear in the evening, that feels a little premature – you still want to soak up the sun in a way that’s best described as ‘casual’, after all. We have the solution to all this stress: a cover-up.

Cover-ups do exactly what they claim to – they cover you up. But, if you don’t want them to, they don’t have to cover everything. In fact, cover-ups come in many forms. There are short robes, flowing cotton dresses and eye-catching crochet pieces, and so, it will come as no surprise that we’ve gathered our favourites for you to choose from.