We wait all year for the sunshine, and then when it comes, we don’t know what to wear. My heatwave wardrobe dilemma puzzles me, because I am GREAT at dressing for holidays.

My holiday starts in the shops six weeks before the flight. I plan my outfits meticulously, ensuring I’ve got something I can climb a mountain in, and something I can throw on for a champagne-fuelled yacht party hosted by an Italian countess I made friends with the night before. I pack for all eventualities, because to me the joy of travel is that stepping into the unknown, that sliver of possibility that when I find myself in a different place, in a different mood, I’ll end up doing something completely different. The day I stop packing my yacht dress is the day I stop believing in travel.

I pack all my new favourite summery clothes, and wake up in the hotel each morning as excited about the contents of my suitcase as I am about my continental breakfast.

So by rights I should be great at dressing in a heatwave. Instead I find myself pining for the very things I was desperate to cast off in winter: blazers, tailored trousers, light knits, cocoon jackets. I feel scruffy with naked, still-pale legs and flat shoes (but heels feel wrong when everyone else is in flipflops) and frumpy in supposedly-floaty dresses. I miss structure, angles, sturdy footwear.

I’ve finally come to the realisation that the problem isn’t the heat. It’s the daily life that gets in the way. I’m not on a Sri Lankan beach or at an Italian café for a boozy lunch; it’s not sufficient for me to just look happy and breezy, my only style agenda on holiday. My job involves interviewing Hollywood actresses or fashion designers at Claridges and meetings with editors under harsh fluorescent office lighting. I need to look slick, well-groomed, professional, and like I know my way around net-a-porter.com. Frizz, sweat and damp cotton clothes won’t cut it. Then there are the practicalities of travelling to work by bike or tube, and not shivering in shorts in the icy air-con at film screenings.

All around central London I am tormented by the sight of working women who have mysteriously got heatwave dressing just right. They’re sipping wine at outdoor tables in vintage maxi dresses, Isabel Marant flouncy tops, drapey silk Maje jumpsuits, all teamed with Marni sandals and Oliver Peoples sunglasses. Recently I cornered a friend who never fails to look both work-appropriate and weather-appropriate in this heat, and asked her for her secret. ‘Oh, I just dress like I’m on holiday,’ she replied, as if I was an idiot for doing anything else. ‘A holiday in New York, that is, but still on holiday.’ It might just work.