MY COAT IS OLD AND GROWING THIN: This is a second attempt at this post. I deleted the first one, as I said in the comments a few threads back, because I am ridiculous. Upon further reflection, I am also right, so I'm going to say it: To the ever-expanding list of things that I have declared on this blog to be not cool (a list that, as 3under5 reminds me, includes Bon Jovi, Drew Barrymore, the Eagles reunion, and Van Hagar, as well as, I believe, Archuleta, mobile-device belt holsters, and wallets with windows for your ID), I am adding: men's spring coats.
I'm not saying that one should not wear a coat in the spring. To that, I say: "brrr." I'm just saying that months of looking for a coat that is appropriate for both casual and office-casual wear while at the same time registering a positive value on the lame-to-cool spectrum has convinced me that that coat just doesn't exist. Standard Banana Republic zippered windbreaker? Platonic neutral on the cool scale; the equivalent of saying that if you don't try you can't fail. North Face fleece? Not if you're not rock climbing at that exact moment. Overcoat? Too hard to drive in, adverse reaction with messenger bag, faintly smells of Columbine. Collarless leather motorcycle jacket? Only if you're a Vicodin-popping misanthropic diagnostician, otherwise you're trying too hard. Blazer or sport coat? Don't get me started.
I think I've owned two cool spring-appropriate coats in my lifetime: a leather bomber jacket (no logos) from the 1980s and a grunge-era $5 thrift-store plasterers' union jacket (made cool because the union label was so ridiculous -- what union features a worker on his hands and knees on its merchandising? What message are you trying to send to management?). I would have had a third -- a black motorcycle jacket (one of those zippered confections) for my ride across the country -- but a friend of mine had one and that would have been exceedingly uncool. What I'm trying to say is that cool jackets have existed, but they don't exist right now.
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