Linen clothes are awesome. Long trousers and long sleeves and almost as cool as short sleeves and shorts in shade, and cooler in direct sun.
The wrinkles are a bit of the charm I think, might be easier to accept if you make it part of the fashion instead of fighting it.
I have been washing for years now with tap cold water since learning that and it seems to work fine, even in winter.
A friend replied with the news that cold would work for just about everything, and I haven’t used warm or hot water since then (maybe once with some really dirty jeans and towels). Such a great hack.
Dedicated summer clothes in trad fabrics are a ton less durable than their winter counterparts, though, for the simple reason that they’re much lighter-constructed. Individual pieces can be had plenty cheap if you bargain-hunt and shop used, but you cycle through more of them than, say, heavy-weight denim or a hefty tweed. Still, mine usually last a few years. Cycling them out seasonally means they don’t wear as fast as some synthetic-blend shirt you wear year-round, so you may not get more wears out of them, but they last a good long while in calendar time.
But man, do they breathe better than just about any of the fancy “tech” fabrics. And feel nicer. Durability, though, is an issue, and you have to get the fit closer to correct than many shoppers may be used to, because most of them won’t have much stretch (no cheating by blending in some nylon or whatever, like a “tech” fabric would)