Dress for success

 

The thing about fall is that it’s not winter. Winter is winter. Winter comes right after fall. Fall is, try to stay with me here, directly after summer. The season of fall is named after a guy who first noticed the tem­perature dropping and, for some reason, coinci­dentally, was always drop­ping stuff. And, in another pretty big coincidence, his name was Fall.

So, I mention fall as a distinct season to winter because some people con­fuse the two. But fall is nothing like winter. Sure, the temperature drops in both seasons but in fall it drops a lot less. A brisk fall evening might put you in the upper 30s. A more tepid effort is going to land you in the vicinity of the 50s. And yet some people, I’m not going to name names but some people, you know who you are, pull out winter coats. The heavy winter coat is a pow­erful beast. When I went to college, I named my winter coat Old Yeller. In Vermont Old Yeller kept me warm for four good years. But if you pull out Old Yeller for fall then what are you going to do come winter? You know what you’re going to do? You’re going to be cold. Because winter is, try to keep up here, colder than fall.

When I first moved to Minnesota my buddy Dan taught me that you don’t break out the winter coat until the temperature is below 20. He explained how your body produces more red blood cells to keep you warmer naturally. Think of red blood cells as nature’s sweatshirt. This is your blood thickening. But you know what my buddy Dan gets a lot in the fall? Cold.

Quick Aside. Notice temperatures listed here are in Fahrenheit. I do this even though Celsius is a better measurement of temperature. On the other hand, for decades now I’ve longed to use the Kelvin scale. The Kelvin scale, as we all learned in junior high and then immedi­ately forgot, starts at 273 degrees, which is “infinite cold” or absolute zero. I’m no expert but I think this kind of scale is good if you’re ever baking cookies in outer space.

Anyway, fall is here, and the question people keep asking is – what should I wear? For a point of ref­erence, Winnie the Pooh dons a scarf for fall. That sounds like a good sound choice but Winnie the Pooh doesn’t wear pants so maybe best we look else­where for fall fashion tips.

One thing you see a lot of in the fall are vests. I’ve already mentioned what I think of vests in this column. Vests are the dev­il’s accessory. They make me think there’s some­one out there in the world sporting just a couple of sleeves. In my opinion, the only people who can wear vests with impu­nity are tech billionaires because being out of touch with reality is kind of their thing.

So, it turns out the prudent thing to wear this time of year is a sweater. We’ve all heard the phrase “sweater weather”? Well, this is it. Weather befitting a sweater. I don’t know why this phrase is so enduring and haunting. Perhaps there’s a simple truth in it? Or maybe it just sounds funny? I dunno.

But what exactly is sweater weather? Sixty? Yes, that’s fine to wear sweaters at sixty degrees Fahrenheit if you’re a slight, frail, older person. (They wear sweaters in the dead of summer for crying out loud!) But if you ask me, sixty degrees Fahrenheit is the absolute worst possible temperature on the planet. It’s too cold for a t-shirt and too warm for a sweater. That’s how I know sweater weather is in the fifties. Or forties. If it gets below that you might want a light jacket.

So, in conclusion, this fall leave the big jackets in the closet and instead pull out a sweater. Or a light jacket. A scarf is optional; pants are not. That being said, I am currently writ­ing this in shorts and a t-shirt. It is November in Minneapolis, Minnesota and the high today – and all week – is seventy degrees Fahrenheit. You know who’s confused by seventy degrees Fahrenheit in November? Everybody. The leaves that want to descend reconsider. The birds that want to migrate hesitate. And the columnist that just wants to impart simple, useful advice flails like a scarf in the wind.