What to Do in July 2026? Everything We’re Wearing, Watching, Reading and Loving This Month

What to Do in July 2026?

The question every woman is quietly asking what do I actually do with this month? The school holidays are incoming. The sun has finally arrived. The to-do list has not got shorter. Somewhere between the sunshine and the schedule, here is the CSC guide to July, what to wear, what to read, what to watch, and what to simply stop doing altogether.

What We’re Wearing

The combination I keep returning to this month is striped trousers and a cropped black tee. It sounds simple because it is — and that is entirely the point. The stripe does the work. The black tee asks nothing of you. Together they are the kind of outfit that takes four minutes to put on and looks considerably more considered than that.

Striped trousers are having a moment right now, and for once the trend and the reality are aligned. They work on a school run, they work for lunch, and dressed up with a good sandal and minimal jewellery they work for an evening out. If you have been circling them and not committing, July is the month to commit. The investment dressing case for a well-cut stripe trouser is straightforward — it is a piece that carries you through summer and back again in September without apology.

What We’re Reading

Olivia Bowen’s new book has just landed and it is top of the reading pile this month. There is a particular pleasure in reading something that arrived exactly when you needed it and summer is the season for exactly that kind of reading. Something absorbing, something that does not require you to work too hard, something you can pick up and put down across a week of interrupted evenings. If you have not already added it to your list, now is the time.

What We’re Watching

The Five Star Weekend arrives this month and it is the one I have been waiting for. Sometimes you want television that is not trying to be important something that is well made, enjoyable, and gives you something to look forward to at the end of a long day. This is that. Save it for a Friday evening with something cold to drink and nowhere to be the following morning.

What We’re Using

The Charlotte Tilbury Unreal Skin Foundation Stick  is the beauty launch of the month. Charlotte Tilbury has a record of delivering on new launches that most brands simply cannot match, and this one is no exception. A skin stick foundation for summer is the format that makes complete sense — buildable, portable, and designed for the kind of quick, no-fuss application that July actually calls for. This is going everywhere with me this month.

What We’re Over

Capri pants. Completely and entirely over them. I understand the appeal in theory — the reference, the nostalgia, the early 2000s moment that fashion keeps returning to. In practice, the capri trouser is one of the least flattering silhouettes available to a woman and the trend has now run considerably past its natural end point. The striped wide-leg trouser is right there as the alternative. Make the switch. Do not look back.

What We’re Loving

The garden. Specifically: sitting in it, doing very little, in the sunshine, with the family around me. There is a particular kind of summer pressure that sets in around July the feeling that because the children are home, or will be soon, every day needs to be accounted for. An activity, a destination, an experience worth photographing. The background noise of summer holiday planning is relentless, and underneath it is the very specific anxiety that only mothers seem to carry: the constant, low-level worry that everyone is happy, that nobody is bored, that you are doing enough.

I am trying to put that down this July. The garden has never looked so good. The sunshine is doing exactly what sunshine is supposed to do. Nobody needs to go anywhere for it to count. The best summers, in my experience, are not the most scheduled ones.

What’s Coming in August

Summer holidays in full force, which means the balance every working mother knows well: keeping the children happy, keeping the work moving, and finding somewhere in between to actually enjoy the season you have been waiting for since February. The garden, as established, is doing a great deal of heavy lifting.

The CSC Report returns in August. In the meantime, the Summer 2026 trends are all here.

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