Dinner on holiday is a specific dress code that nobody writes down. It is warmer than an evening at home, less formal than a city restaurant, and almost always outdoors for at least part of it. The room is candlelit or it is a terrace. There is wind. There is usually uneven ground between the table and the car.

That combination rules out a surprising amount of eveningwear. Heavily structured pieces read overdressed. Floor length picks up dust. Strapless in a breeze becomes a full-time job. What works is a midi or a short dress in a fabric that moves, with enough print or colour to look deliberate in low light rather than washed out by it.

The eight below run $250 to $395. Rails and STAUD cover the printed cotton end, which is the most useful register for a first night. The Frankie Shop keeps it plain in crepe. Third Form, Significant Other and Milly handle satin, pleating and ruffle. Vince and Kay Unger are the steadier options, black jersey and a dark floral, both built to be worn again at home.

Shoes are where dinner on holiday goes wrong. A stiletto on a gravel path or a wooden deck makes for a bad evening. The platform and the block heel exist for exactly this, and both have been the commercial story in evening footwear for several seasons. Badgley Mischka and Bernardo build theirs at 70 to 90 millimetres with the weight spread across the whole foot. Black Suede Studio and Aeyde take the lower, squarer route.

The clutch has been through the opposite change. Hard frames and beading gave way to soft pouches, and then came back. What is here covers both approaches. BTB Los Angeles and Emm Kuo work in raffia and wicker, which reads as holiday and costs less to carry than leather. STAUD's satin and Cult Gaia's resin are the going-out versions.

Prices run $228 to $435 across the grid. That is the honest middle of the category. Below it the heel construction gets unreliable. Above it you are mostly paying for the name rather than the evening.

Jewelry on holiday follows one rule. It has to survive sunscreen, salt and being taken off at a beach. That pushes people toward plated brass and gold vermeil rather than fine pieces, and it is why the travel jewelry market has grown around the hundred to two hundred and fifty dollar band rather than the four-figure one.

The eight here sit between $90 and $248. Heaven Mayhem and Alexis Bittar are plated, sculptural and deliberately oversized, which is the right scale for a tanned face in low light. Marc Jacobs and Roxanne Assoulin bring colour. The Louis Abel ear cuff needs no piercing, which matters more than it sounds once you have lost a butterfly back in the sand.

The pendants are the quieter half of the grid. Annika Inez and Jane Win both put a single charm on a fine chain, the kind of thing that disappears under a shirt during the day and carries a plain dress at night. Brinker + Eliza's Groovy necklace is the loudest piece here and the only one that would do the job on its own.