I woke up this morning and realized that Thanksgiving is just a week and two days away! We're all a little thrown off here in the northeast, because it does not feel like autumn at all. In fact, it's so warm that no one knows what to wear when they wake up in the morning. Suddenly, women have started wearing their flip-flops again--even in the rain, which might be a strange New York City thing. Here, you can wield an umbrella like a weapon, but heaven forbid you keep your feet dry.

People in NYC wear inappropriate clothes all year long. In winter you see bare legs and sleeveless dresses, and this is for everyday, not for a dressy party. In fact, you really have to search to find a dress with a sleeve in any of the stores, and it's November. The snow boots with spiky high heels have been perplexing me for nearly twenty years.

In Anne Mallory's THE EARL OF HER DREAMS, our heroine, Kate Simon, really dresses inappropriately--as a boy. How else could young women escape in those days? We've certainly come a long way.

And to go back to those bare legs, when I first began working I was actually chastised for not wearing panty hose on a sweltering summer day. Can you believe it?

5 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said:

I always thought New Yorkers were so much more formal than us Southern Californians. My husband used to work in the courthouse and the attorneys (not the DAs or public defenders) would stroll in wearing Hawaiian shirts and khakis! When I was reporting for the Times, I once interviewed a gallery owner in his jacuzzi - I sat primly on the chaise lounge and refused to look south of his chin!

Mary C.

1:53 PM  

Blogger Pennsylvania Independent said:

I am in Pennsylvania and a few women wear sandals to work in the middle of winter.

3:16 PM  

Blogger Kelley said:

Ha...I recently received the quarterly edition of my alumni magazine, and on the cover there was a girl wearing her North Face jacket and flip-flops! I couldn't help but think, "perhaps this is not portraying us in the most flattering light...?"

My wardrobe has been thrown for a loop the past few weeks. Winter jacket one day, short sleeves the next...

8:44 PM  

Blogger cube said:

Flip flops are everywhere down here in Florida. That's a little more understandable given our weather. But New York? Those women must have furnace feet.

12:37 PM  

Anonymous Anonymous said:

Flip flops in NYC??

I do see the snow boots with high heels in all the stores here in Southern CA too. When we went shopping for boots last year, both my daughter and I had to settle for buying boys boots. We'd have broken legs with the styles they had in the women's section!

5:19 PM  

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