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October 10, 2005
The Intrepid Fashion Explorer Discovers...The Sweater!
I broke personal fashion ground today.
This is my fifth year of living at a latitude where a sweater is actually necessary from October to March. Those of you who have grown up with cycling, seasonal closets may not realize just how difficult this climate adjustment is on one's personal sense of style. When your entire fashion life thus far has been one of matching t-shirts with shorts and swimsuits with slippers, moving to a cooler climate presents a host of wardrobe crises.
First, there's the mystery of layering. Weather-wizened friends strongly advise piling on a tank-top, shirt, sweater, scarf, and coat in tight succession. But layering also means that the number of articles needing to be matched or otherwise coordinated increases exponentially. Sure, this could be easily solved by either "not caring" or only wearing shades of a single color, but I live in perpetual dread of looking like either an Olsen twin or an Old Navy twinset spokesperson.
Secondly, tripling the amount of clothes one wears at any given moment significantly alters one's silhouette. An inch and a half overall coating of wool and fleece will hide and create curves in all the inappropriate places. Suddenly, my conception of the human form merged with my knowledge of a bag of jet puffed marshmallows. Disconcerting? Yes.
Finally: covered shoes. My freshman year of college, I obstinately resisted wearing anything other than open toe slippers or sandals until temperatures literally dipped below freezing. My rationale was, quite simply, that I would rather have unconstricted (albeit numb) toes than warm, confined ones. Even after I caved and succumbed to the shoe-wearing culture my troubles were far from over. I realized that I completely lacked any kind of aesthetic for closed-toe footwear. Were pointy toe shoes chic or witchy? Did those mules look too nurse-like? Will sparkles be too trendy in two months?
All that to say that, today, I wore a sweater over a button-down shirt for the first time in my life. Fall, I welcome you with an open closet.
Carefully Dramatized Life Accounts , Confession , Hawaii , Woeful Tales of Cultural Integration | By elissa | 08:52 PM
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Comments
Go Elissa! I am confident that you will come to love sweaters, eventually. They're so warm and fuzzy... ; ) I have one on right now. Of course, it is snowing outside...
I hope you're doing fantastically well this fine Monday evening.
Posted by: becky at October 10, 2005 09:24 PM
becky! i'm jealous of your snow...
i do love sweaters, i just have never figured out how to combine them with other things. i think i'm breaking new ground, though ;)
Posted by: elissa at October 10, 2005 09:31 PM
I like the sleeveless white blouse under sweaters. Or a long sleeve white blouse under sweaters. White blouses are multi useful.
Posted by: Krista at October 11, 2005 11:40 AM
