Thursday, January 6, 2011

The Photo Journal

Okay, I checked to see if the blog name I wanted for the Year in Dresses Journal was available and it was. So I got it: A Year in Dresses (and put up my first post!). That way if you're interested in the dress experiment you can follow it and if not you'll probably only hear about it over here now and then!

7 comments:

  1. I added your new blog to my "Favorites". Maybe because it's so cold here (southern WI/northern IL) or maybe because it's just the style of this region, but I RARELY see women in dresses or skirts. Maybe you'll motivate me to expand my wardrobe practices!

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  2. So... I tried to post this comment over on your Day 1 post on your photo journal, but blogger was having none of it. Hope you don't mind if I post here and maybe you can move it over if you like. (And it kind of addresses the post above anyway.)

    Hope you don't mind some rather random comments provoked by your "brave the cold caption."

    I came over here to have a look out of idle curiosity. (I'm neither pro- nor anti- skirts/dresses. Clothing is clothing, and as such, not a very important thing except as it enables or inhibits the things one needs to do, IMO.) However, I did wonder how your "Year of Dresses" would work out given that you've said it's quite cold where you are.

    So, I was very surprised when I saw most of your dresses here are short-sleeved/not long and when I saw your outfit for "braving the cold," I shivered! That outfit would leave me numb if I went outside in it where I am. (I'm a displaced Californian living on the East Coast*.)

    Out of curiosity, I googled weather in Trinity County, CA and found that the temps there for this week even in the coldest listed town run about 10 degrees warmer than here on the Atlantic seaboard - and the ten degrees between highs in 40s/50s and highs in the 30s/low 40s is a BIG ten degrees in my experience! Just this year (my third living out here) I have finally figured out how to stay reasonably warm in the winter.

    For the benefit of anyone wanting to wear skirts/dresses in temps colder than yours, I thought I'd share my experience:

    First off, I have to say that, in my experience, skirt wearing in the cold is impractical unless you have money to spend on layers for underneath. I find that pants are significantly warmer overall-- mainly because they don't let the (horrible, icy) wind in as much. (I'll qualify that by saying that I just don't have the funds for wool tights which I hear help a lot with skirt wearing.)

    However, if you do wear skirts, I've found that A-line skirts are a bad idea. I own quite a few b/c they are so figure-flattering, but they are *useless* in the cold. I even was given a beautiful long (hem hits just above my ankles) A-line wool skirt for a past Christmas, but it lets in so much wind/air that even with bike shorts and tights underneath (and knee socks and tall boots), I might as well be outside in just those shorts and tights.

    I find that second to wearing pants (with tights, boots and warm socks), I'm warmest in straight, just above the knee (for mobility) skirts made of warm material (wool or thick denim) with bike-shorts and tights underneath and tall boots with warm socks. My knees are usually pretty cold, but I find that much less bothersome than the entire stretch of my legs above my boots being cold/numb.

    Hope this helps someone stay warm!

    (*Currently sitting in my theoretically heated office wearing two shirts, a sweater and a shawl, tights, warmest pants I own, boots, and knee-socks ...and my hands are icy. I hate winter.)

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  3. Ah... google..

    And yahoo too!

    The other day I was sitting at my computer while it was below freezing outside. Yahoo informed me that it was 50 degrees.

    It's almost noon here right now and we still have frost on the ground.

    Yesterday the sun did make an appearance and I think it might have gotten into the fifties, but lately it has been mostly twenties and thirties. It hasn't quite made it above freezing today yet.

    So far I haven't had the same problem with A-line skirts. But maybe you're talking negative temperatures. I've only been down to -5 while here in California! But usually when I say "very cold" I mean teens!

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  4. No, I don't mean negative temps - I couldn't survive those! I don't know how people manage where it gets that cold.

    I do mean around freezing, and the ground here is also frozen hard (has been for a while - I wish it would just snow already) so it seems as though the cold where you are is similar. With the one exception that we haven't seen 50 degrees here for a while - there's very little variation in temperature during the day.

    According to weather.com (which I don't find so accurate, so I think it's probably not as cold as it says) wind chill does make the 30s "feel like" the teens sometimes.

    As to A-line skirts - all I can say is, I arrived at church with numb legs yesterday, due to the wind under my long wool skirt! It was quite a revelation to me a few weeks ago when (in a moment of not much clean laundry) I found that my short straight jean skirt is the warmest thing (outside of pants) I own. I don't own a car and so I have to be able to withstand fairly long periods outside if I'm going to go anywhere.

    Also, I saw your post on your photo journal and I must respectfully disagree about the cost of layering. Costs really depend on what is accessible to you.

    I don't have anyone to hand down slips to me, for example, and I have yet to find a slip in a retail store that is longer than knee length.

    For other layers, I really do find that wool is the warmest option. I came out here from CA with mostly cotton clothing and I've been slowly replacing my winter clothes with wool when I can afford to. Wool tights here retail for $30-$40 at full-price clothing stores - I've never seen them at a discount store here. The warmest option outside of wool is modal or cotton (nylon costs the same but is much less warm, imo) which costs about $10-$20 pair at full-price stores, but which you can find for $5-10 if you shop the discount stores at the right time. I *love* the sweater tights trend this year... warmest thing I've found yet. (Ironically, I can't shop Goodwill, because the Goodwill here is not accessible by public transit. There isn't much else in the way of thrift stores here - only consignment which is a synonym for pricey.) If you add in the cost of bike shorts or something similar and warm socks (again the warmest options cost) and you're talking nearly the retail cost of a skirt itself, for the underneath layers.

    So, if you don't have access to thrift stores or hand-me-downs, layers really can get expensive.

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  5. Also, (I'm a squirrel brain) you must be *much* less sensitive to cold than I am! I don't wear short-sleeves even inside in the winter - I just get too cold...

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  6. Yikes! Without access to thrift stores it would be pricey! The only other thing I could think of was keeping your eyes open for garage sales! But those are so hit and miss! You can either find something wonderful... or nothing at all.

    And I was one of those little kids running around in shorts at 40 degrees... which, now that I think about it, is probably where Sadie gets it from! She's always peeling off layers! It drives me crazy!

    Good luck staying warm! Without layers I would go with pants during winter too!

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  7. I've got other ideas for the warmth. The Silk thermals are always nice. Up front they are quite pricey but I've had a pair that I've had for 12 years now. I've seen them at discount stores like Ross and Marshals for a bit less. As for the slips I've discovered that my silky lingerer works well. My temps are hovering in the 40 but I'm ALWAYS cold. I wear socks to bed in the summer with short sleeves and long PJ pants. My husband hates me at night because you can feel the cold radiating off of my feet and I sleep with an electric blanket with the thermostat at 70 during the winter. In the current climate I'm wearing two pairs of socks, sweat pants a T-shirt and sweatshirt and I'm still cold while in the house.

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