I recently read an article that irritated me so much I felt the need to write a response to it. Said article was from the fashion blog Man Repeller, which I have been following for years. Man Repeller posts about a variety of things, but mainly topics related to fashion directed to the modern woman who doesn’t feel she needs to dress to impress men. I usually really enjoy the website, but when I saw “It’s Time to Put a Stop to Weather Shaming”, written by digital editor Haley Nahman, I definitely had an extreme reaction.
The basic premise of the article is that weather-inappropriate dress should be added to the list of things that are off-limits to mention to people. The author describes her experience of wearing a red puffer coat in August and experiencing comments of “Aren’t you hot?” and “Really? You’re wearing that in this weather?” Her argument is that these questions aren’t genuine and that the only purpose they serve is to make the person feel stupid for wearing what they chose while making the “weather shamer” feel superior.
I call bullshit. I am a notorious “weather shamer”, if that’s the case. If I’m getting ready with my friends and I see them putting on a sweater when I know its 80 degrees outside, I’ll call them on it. I check the weather every morning, so I want to help them out if they haven’t had a chance. I don’t want them to be uncomfortable all day. I’m also very quick to judge if I see people walking around campus dressed inappropriately for the weather. Maybe it’s none of my business, but dressing is very important to me so it’s something that I notice. Don’t you want to be comfortable in your clothes? One of my biggest pet peeves is when I see someone baring their legs on the first day of March that gets to be over 50 degrees. Sure, it’s a lot warmer than the 30 degree weather we’ve been experiencing all winter, but it’s still not warm.
In conclusion, wearing a red puffer coat in August is ridiculous and “weather shaming” is not a thing. Even if it is, I’m not going to stop doing it. It takes 5 seconds to check the weather before you get dressed in the morning. Isn’t that 5 seconds worth the 8 hours of discomfort you’ll feel when you get heat stroke wearing a heavy winter jacket in AUGUST?