From the club rat to the surf shaman… the people to be wary of on your weekend getaway.

With every summer in New York, “The Hamptons”, a rough collective sunbrella term for the string of towns and hamlets at the easternmost end of Long Island, becomes less a place than an idea: a Shangri-la for the lucky few who, having traversed the lengths of the Long Island Expressway, enter a leisure ecosystem without compare.

These outland idylls seem to exist within a vacuum, a sand-and-surf gold coast buffeted by wealth and unbothered by the worries beyond its monied bubble. As such, the Hamptons have developed their own social order, a delicate and symbiotic balance of characters that have learned to co-exist, more or less harmoniously, each with their own distinct set of sartorial cues. Should you plan on whiling away your summer Fridays out east, it might be helpful to know who you’re looking at. So read on to find out.

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Taking a well-deserved break from the high-octane work of moving money around the globe or disrupting the plastic-salad-bowl economy, our blue-blazered power broker fires up the NetJet to hop out to the family’s $6.6m waterfront in Southampton with the kids and their respective nannies in tow. Here, he’s off-duty, which calls for casualwear, his idea of which being the Brioni suit he wears all week, insouciantly paired with a breezy French blue Charvet button-up. If he’s feeling particularly salty, he might even consider the introduction of some linen from Brunello Cucinelli for a dinner at Nick & Toni’s.

Where once this tribesman was exclusively a member of the old-money class, his ranks now mix with his younger nouveau riche counterpart – tech impresarios arrived in their Teslas, who, happily, also favour a good soft-shouldered summer-weight Cucinelli jacket.

Still another variant of the Blue Blazer Zaddy is the kind of firmly-ingrained celebrity who has stalked the Hamptons for so long he feels like part of the furniture. This sort belongs on this plane and also in a place apart. When spotted by the local civilians, he is always referred to by his other name: “Mr Alec Baldwin”.

The young scion of a celebrity couple – or perhaps a captain of industry, or super producer – having reached the age where he must chart his own course, has channelled the privilege of his upbringing into something he can put his name on, something ambitious, something with integrity, something like rosé. In between promoting his brand’s release at The Surf Lodge and manning the decks at The Surf Lodge, he can be found on the patio of The Surf Lodge, lazing away a Sunday afternoon with his social circle, an elastic cabal of similarly multi-hyphenated model-socialites, socialite-influencers, influencer-DJs, and DJ-promoters. He favours loud and luxe separates: athleisure of the sort that does not suggest athletic exertion in the slightest, but nevertheless moves nicely to the strains of Balearic trance.

God bless the Share-House Bro, spilling out of the 3.30pm jitney, all Nike Flyknits and fizzy J.Crew camp shirts, buoyed by optimism and the promise of the newest designer rosé. Determined to maximize the next 40 or so hours, last weekend’s tear-strewn debacle but a distant memory, the Share-House Bro retires to The Sloppy Tuna for “chum buckets” before making his way to the weekend’s large-format house party. Clad in a modified prep aesthetic – shorts in blush or seersucker, or perhaps a pair of jazzily-patterned Orlebar Brown swim trunks, a cashmere-blend sweater draped across the shoulders if the mood takes hold – our man dresses pursuant to his aggressive leisure mission, which he will fulfill, in accordance with public intoxication statutes or nay.

Summer in the Hamptons is not all air-kissing and lazing on the beach; there’s also air-kissing and white wine receptions. The Art-World Adjacents are drawn to the artistic pedigree of this territory, where midcentury masters like Mr Jackson Pollock and Ms Lee Krasner and the de Koonings made their homes, and where Mr Larry Rivers’ 16ft-tall disembodied gams strike an eternal pose.

Manhattan’s gallery district transposes itself east en masse, bouncing between the Parrish Art Museum Midsummer Party, the Guild Hall Summer Gala, and The Watermill Center’s Annual Summer Benefit, the avant-garde theater director Mr Robert Wilson’s sylvan temple to the arts (if you’ve ever wanted to know the sight of hundreds of pairs of architecturally-significant eyewear descending into the woods, this is your chance). A high-low melange is typical: Prada loafers and an old pair of jeans. Espadrilles picked up “somewhere along the Med” are also a good bet.

A denizen of Montauk, the easternmost town on the peninsula and a once-sleepy fishing village that now attracts a louche bohemianism, the Moondoggie can be identified by his long, surf-sprayed tresses and laissez-faire affect. But don’t be lulled by the piquant bouquet of salt and board wax: the Moondoggie has a taste for the lush life and the bank account to match, which keeps him in slouchy James Perse T-shirts, muted, pliant knits care of The Elder Statesman, and open-toed sandals. Jewellery is not to be neglected: artfully-stacked beaded bracelets, souvenirs from surf trips to Kauai and Puerto Escondido, and of course the calling card of the native son, the shark-tooth necklace.

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