For the love of coats!

[fifi]

I am in love with vintage coats and jackets! Living in L.A. it seems a little counter-intuitive, but our coat closet (my husband is the same way) is filled to overflowing with gabardine coats, strollers, swing jackets, car coats, Pendleton '49ers, and more! We should live in a colder climate. I wear them every time there's even the tiniest chill in the air. Is anyone else so afflicted?

 

[magneto]

Me too! There is something about a nice coat or jacket that just makes anyone look so much more pulled together and polished. It drives me crazy when I see someone wearing a skirt or 'proper' trousers topped with some pilled polyester "fleece" (fleece should come from an *animal*, thankyouverymuch!) monstrosity made out of recycled plastic pop bottles (which some wretch has doubtless used as a spitoon).

Today I wandered into the thrift store that is usually a vintage desert, and found a handstitched 50s jacket/car coat(?) with nice big buttons, with a tag from some tailorshop in Kowloon. I sympathize with your warm climate dilemna. I have a fur trapeze jacket I never get to wear without splashing out on transportation to some snowy climate.

 

[Lauren]

I'm totally afflicted. I love the look of seperates, especially suits. I'm dying to make a 30's swagger coat once I find the right pattern. I'm addicted to jackets. My closet is nearly overflowing with them. There's something about a jacket or coat that just MAKES the outfit. I'm thankful for the colder weather (even in california) because it gives us an excuse to wear them!

 

[Naama]

Ah! I just couldn't live in a constantly warm climate. I just love the winter time too much! It's hard on one hand if you want to wear skirts and I have a hard time finding right shoes but then again you can wear coat's and stuff!

Naama

 

[decodoll]

Guilty. That's a good thing about San Francisco...we get to wear some kind of jacket or coat almost year round!

 

[maisie]

Living in England, I get lots of opportunities to wear a coat! I personlly love the ones with the boucle wool trims and nipped in waists!!

 

[Tin Pan Sally]

Coat Freaks Anonymous

I have a separate closet full of vintage coats, capes, boleros, stoles, and umbrellas. Even though I currently live in the Phoenix desert, where the summer temperatures are in the triple digits Fahrenheit, it rarely rains, and almost never snows.
My favorites are:
1) an inherited Donaldsons mink stole with matching earrings (I love clip-ons and screw-backs)
2) early 1940s black nurses cape
I'll be back in the Midwest eventually, where people don't throw "old stuff" away like they do out here. I used to pick up perfect dresses, shoes and (still packaged) stockings at garage sales and thrift stores for .75 cents as a teen. All my best finds were back in Iowa and Indiana.