Clothes shopping, kinda
Jan. 22nd, 2019 09:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickSo I'm in the office today because it's 4 outside and I am not feeling motivated in the slightest. And M. who is the office staff, such as we have, is "You might want to look into getting another winter coat because that one is, well, looking a bit the worse for wear." Politely, she did not say "You are wearing worse clothing than the homeless." but that's probably what she really meant.
I hate change. A lot. I hate buying things. A lot. I hate having to shop and the endless agony of navigating I hate this color, I hate this cut, I hate the plastic-y feeling of the poly blends, those buttons will annoy me, I will not be able to live with that pocket placement, what the hell are princess seams doing on an item of winter outwear called a BARN COAT, look you fuckwits, I need this to fit over two sweatshirts, an underarmour layer, and a t-shirt. I don't need it to have PRINCESS SEAMS AND A BACK TAB FOR SHAPING SO THAT PEOPLE CAN TELL I AM A GIRL UNDER FIVE LAYERS OF CLOTHING!!! and by that point I'm yelling at the computer screen and everyone (mostly me) needs to take a deep breath.
The problem is my barn coat. It's from LL Bean and it's about... more than eight years old. (Due to the power of DW's journal search feature, I can tell you with confidence that I got The Barn Coat in fall, 2008. It is ten years old.) Mom got it for me before grandma died. Grandma died when Tess was four and she's twelve now. I do not rightly know how much more than eight years old it is. I only wear it in the winter, when it gets really cold. Until it gets REALLY cold, I wear a blue lightweight shirt-jacket thing that cuts the wind and layer underneath it. I have a couple of choices. Here's the jeanjacket-y one I got from Sam, fashion-forwardly paired with the Fluffy Girly Scarf that I only break out when it's super cold. (I have the Fluffy Girly Scarf with me today, arranged to go around neck, over head, over lower-face in two directions, and then tie off. It's longer than I am tall, so this is not a problem.) The Fluffy Girly Scarf has its uses in extremely cold weather despite its regrettable coloring. (I made it and its coloring is not its fault. That's on me.) At least it's not sparkley. Also please note that this picture was taken March 12, 2017. March is NOT SPRING YET where I live.
The Barn Coat is longer than my ass and not suitable for riding horses in because it catches the back of the saddle in an annoying way. I do not ride in it. Hell, I do not get out the Barn Coat until it's super, super cold and I have to be out for A WHILE in the cold doing things that require more mobility than driving the dozer (an activity for which I wear The Coveralls and move about as well as the kid in A Christmas Story who falls over and can't get up again.) so... super, super cold (single digits) and shoveling sidewalks or running the snowthrower or feeding the horses or replacing the hydraulic fluid and filters in the dozer or that style of thing.
You'd think that this would be a light use set of circumstances, but apparently there has been enough crappily super-cold weather over the last more-than-eight years that the Barn Coat is a bit the worse for wear now despite being reserved for the very worst of the winter. And so my office person has suggested that perhaps I upgrade the coat to a newer version. I tried LL Bean and what they have for "barn coat" now is this. *sigh* My existing coat does not have princess seams. It's a rectangle. It does not have a back tab to make me look shapely because it intelligently understands that if I have five layers of clothes on, there is nothing in the world that will make me look fucking shapely and plus also if I am dressed like that, I have OTHER CONCERNS BESIDES LOOKING SHAPELY. There is a time and a place for shapely, is what I am saying.
But I looked over at Carhartt and they don't have what I want. LL Bean's men's choices are also not what I want. So I will buy this regrettably stylish and needlessly feminized piece of clothing in the dark green color (current Barn Coat is a faded red that used to be redder like cranberry or something) because at least it has workable pockets and nice, large buttons that you can do up with gloves on. But I am not happy about it. Damn it all, why can't they just make things I like?
I hate change. A lot. I hate buying things. A lot. I hate having to shop and the endless agony of navigating I hate this color, I hate this cut, I hate the plastic-y feeling of the poly blends, those buttons will annoy me, I will not be able to live with that pocket placement, what the hell are princess seams doing on an item of winter outwear called a BARN COAT, look you fuckwits, I need this to fit over two sweatshirts, an underarmour layer, and a t-shirt. I don't need it to have PRINCESS SEAMS AND A BACK TAB FOR SHAPING SO THAT PEOPLE CAN TELL I AM A GIRL UNDER FIVE LAYERS OF CLOTHING!!! and by that point I'm yelling at the computer screen and everyone (mostly me) needs to take a deep breath.
The problem is my barn coat. It's from LL Bean and it's about... more than eight years old. (Due to the power of DW's journal search feature, I can tell you with confidence that I got The Barn Coat in fall, 2008. It is ten years old.) Mom got it for me before grandma died. Grandma died when Tess was four and she's twelve now. I do not rightly know how much more than eight years old it is. I only wear it in the winter, when it gets really cold. Until it gets REALLY cold, I wear a blue lightweight shirt-jacket thing that cuts the wind and layer underneath it. I have a couple of choices. Here's the jeanjacket-y one I got from Sam, fashion-forwardly paired with the Fluffy Girly Scarf that I only break out when it's super cold. (I have the Fluffy Girly Scarf with me today, arranged to go around neck, over head, over lower-face in two directions, and then tie off. It's longer than I am tall, so this is not a problem.) The Fluffy Girly Scarf has its uses in extremely cold weather despite its regrettable coloring. (I made it and its coloring is not its fault. That's on me.) At least it's not sparkley. Also please note that this picture was taken March 12, 2017. March is NOT SPRING YET where I live.
The Barn Coat is longer than my ass and not suitable for riding horses in because it catches the back of the saddle in an annoying way. I do not ride in it. Hell, I do not get out the Barn Coat until it's super, super cold and I have to be out for A WHILE in the cold doing things that require more mobility than driving the dozer (an activity for which I wear The Coveralls and move about as well as the kid in A Christmas Story who falls over and can't get up again.) so... super, super cold (single digits) and shoveling sidewalks or running the snowthrower or feeding the horses or replacing the hydraulic fluid and filters in the dozer or that style of thing.
You'd think that this would be a light use set of circumstances, but apparently there has been enough crappily super-cold weather over the last more-than-eight years that the Barn Coat is a bit the worse for wear now despite being reserved for the very worst of the winter. And so my office person has suggested that perhaps I upgrade the coat to a newer version. I tried LL Bean and what they have for "barn coat" now is this. *sigh* My existing coat does not have princess seams. It's a rectangle. It does not have a back tab to make me look shapely because it intelligently understands that if I have five layers of clothes on, there is nothing in the world that will make me look fucking shapely and plus also if I am dressed like that, I have OTHER CONCERNS BESIDES LOOKING SHAPELY. There is a time and a place for shapely, is what I am saying.
But I looked over at Carhartt and they don't have what I want. LL Bean's men's choices are also not what I want. So I will buy this regrettably stylish and needlessly feminized piece of clothing in the dark green color (current Barn Coat is a faded red that used to be redder like cranberry or something) because at least it has workable pockets and nice, large buttons that you can do up with gloves on. But I am not happy about it. Damn it all, why can't they just make things I like?
