My last fifteen years have involved four radically different climates.
I no longer own the winter clothes that came with me on the last big move. We had a terrible moth problem (insects adore Texas), and rather than mend sweaters that I didn’t have an actual use for, just to let them get re-nibbled, they got discarded. My down parka went to a friend. My rain coat lost its rain-proofness. I unraveled a pair of knitted tights to make a shawl, then I mostly stopped knitting. My “winter shoes” for the last two years have been a pair of canvas Keds. I own one pair of jeans.
None of those things have been problems, mind you. This week, though, just as we have it hanging over our heads that we might have to relocate again, the weather has gone from the 70s to the 40s, and I am really unprepared.
I refuse to panic shop for clothes. I’ll get by; it will be warm again in a few days. But, what if I leave here and go someplace where 40 degrees in December is, you know, a regular thing? Or, heaven forbid, considered to be warm? What would a slow-fashion winter wardrobe look like, when you have to violate the fundamental principle of slow fashion and buy everything, or at least enough things, all at once?
(Photo: Detail of my one remaining handknit sweater, in the most completely-ridiculous-for-this-climate unspun Icelandic wool.)
Jessica Thinks 