An Italian summer wardrobe is built from the ground up, which sounds like a styling cliche until you try it the other way round and find yourself with nothing to wear the dress with.

There are three tiers of warm-weather shoe and you need at least two. The first is the genuinely disposable one: a rubber beachwear slider you can walk into the sea in. The second is the leather slide, which looks like the first from a distance but is finished properly and can go to dinner. The third is the heel, and in summer that usually means a slingback or a platform sandal rather than a court shoe, because the foot needs air.

The mistake is buying only the middle tier and then wearing a good calfskin slide on wet sand. Buy the cheap rubber pair on purpose so the good pair survives.

Raffia sits slightly outside this system. It is the most seasonal material here, it will not last as many years as leather, and it is also the single fastest way to make a plain linen outfit look like it belongs somewhere warm.

If you only take one dress, take the one that can be worn three ways. A long silk chiffon slip works over a swimsuit at lunch, on its own at dinner, and under a jacket when the wind comes up. A printed charmeuse dress does the same job with more personality and slightly less flexibility.

Two practical notes. Silk chiffon and lace need a bit of care but they pack better than almost anything else, because they crush and recover rather than creasing hard. Cotton and linen do the opposite, which is why they photograph beautifully and travel badly.

Second, length. A long dress reads as more formal than a short one in almost every setting, so if you are packing a single dress for a trip with an unknown dinner in it, take the longer one. It covers more occasions, not fewer.

Colour is the last decision, and the safest answer is not black. In strong light, ivory, deep red and prints hold up better than black, which flattens.

The finishing pieces are where a summer wardrobe stops looking like a packing list and starts looking like a person.

Fragrance in heat behaves differently. Warm skin projects more, so a scent that reads as moderate in February can be overwhelming in August. Lighter citrus and aquatic compositions are built for this, which is why the Light Blue family has stayed on shelves for two decades. The richer Devotion side is better once the sun goes down. If you can only take one, take the lighter one and apply it twice a day rather than the heavier one once.

Jewellery in summer wants to be either very simple or one genuinely good coloured stone, and nothing in between. Skin shows more, so a single ring with real presence lands better than a stack that will tangle in a swimsuit strap.

The bag should be small and structured. Everything else you are wearing is soft and moving, so one firm shape stops the whole outfit reading as beachwear.

The version of this that works is smaller than you think. Two pairs of shoes, one long dress, one small structured bag, one scent, one ring. That is a fortnight, and it is genuinely enough.

Where people go wrong is buying the most photographed piece first. The embroidered platform sandal is beautiful and it will be worn four times. The plain leather slide will be worn forty. Buy in that order and the wardrobe pays for itself.

If you take one thing away, make it this: get the two shoe tiers right, cheap rubber for the sand and good leather for everything else, and the rest of an Italian summer wardrobe more or less assembles itself around them.