The linen to wear in Miami Beach is one that can face eight humid months of the year and still look composed at a gallery in December: long-fibre cloth, a loose cut and a provenance you can check. Miami Beach is its own city, a barrier island across Biscayne Bay from Miami, and it dresses for two things at once, the Atlantic and the architecture.

The architecture came first. In 1979 the Miami Beach Architectural District, the Art Deco district, was added to the National Register of Historic Places, described by the preservation league that fought for it as the nation’s first urban district of twentieth-century buildings: some eight hundred hotels and apartment blocks in Art Deco, Streamline Moderne and Mediterranean Revival, saved through a campaign led by Barbara Baer Capitman. On streets like these, a linen shirt is part of the scenery.

The climate is the second test. From May to October, the wet season, afternoons pass 30°C, the humidity is heavy and a thunderstorm can arrive and leave within the hour; the Atlantic hurricane season runs from June to the end of November. From November to April the air dries, the days settle in the mid-twenties and the evenings are soft enough for long sleeves. In humid air, linen’s advantage is that it takes moisture from the skin and gives it back quickly, so it does not cling; in the dry months, it is simply the most comfortable cloth for long days outdoors.

In a city full of linen, the differences between one shirt and another show. A good linen shirt feels cool and slightly crisp in the hand, not limp. Its yarn is even, with natural slubs rather than flaws. It is woven from long flax fibre of the kind grown in the cool coastal belt of Flanders and northern France, and the brand can say where. Belgian Linen®, a private certification mark rather than a legal designation, follows the flax from field to cloth; Belgian and French linen compared explains how the origins differ. Pieter Petros garments are handmade in the Dubai atelier and in Belgium, much of the collection in certified Belgian linen, with seashell buttons on most of the shirts.

A South Beach day starts early, before the heat, with a walk along the Ocean Drive promenade and Lummus Park. A man in the Laos Short Sleeve Linen Shirt in Sky Blue and PP linen shorts in White from the men’s linen collection is right for coffee facing the sea, the pale blue easy against the mint and pink facades. At the water, PP swim shorts in Roosewood Pink take over, in Belgian linen and made for the sea. For her, the Linen Ladies Set in Mint Green from the women’s linen collection belongs on this stretch of coast.

At midday the walk turns inland to Lincoln Road, the pedestrian mall redesigned by the architect Morris Lapidus, who also gave Miami Beach the Fontainebleau in 1954. Lunch in the shade asks for something lighter than the morning: the Laos Short Sleeve Linen Shirt in Lemon Yellow, or for her the PP linen blouse in Lemon, worn open at the collar as the afternoon heat builds.

In the first week of December, Miami Beach fills for Art Basel Miami Beach, held at the Miami Beach Convention Center since its first edition in December 2002, and for the satellite fairs that gather around it. The weather is at its kindest, and the dress is considered but never formal. A man in the Monte-Carlo Male in Oyster, with its walnut buttons, and PP Casual Linen Trousers in Oatmeal moves from a morning preview to a long lunch without changing. For her, the Amelia linen dress shirt in Dubarry, in Belgian linen, is a dress in itself and holds its own in a room full of art. What to wear at Art Basel has more.

Evenings in South Beach begin late. From mid-October to mid-May it is stone crab season, and at Joe’s Stone Crab, a South Beach institution since 1913, the dining room fills with families who have been coming for generations. The Laos Long Sleeve Linen Shirt in Dark Blue with PP Trousers 100% Linen in White is enough for a table like that; for her, the Amelia in Hibiscus carries the warmth of a South Beach night.

North of the deco blocks, the beach runs on past the Faena District and the long hotel row of Mid-Beach toward Surfside and Bal Harbour, where the pace slows and the sand widens. A day there is swim shorts, a white linen shirt and very little else, and linen for Bal Harbour covers that village on its own.

For Miami Beach, the collection is ordered ahead, so that it is waiting when the season begins. The city across the bay keeps its own rhythm, and its own chapter in linen for Miami.

Read more: What to Wear in Miami Beach · What to Wear in Miami Beach as a Couple · The Linen Shirt at the Beach