Fashion – Life of kk

If you hold onto something long enough, it will come back in style. And this year – among the wide leg jeans – it’s the barn jacket.

It was during my time in college that everyone was wearing barn jackets. Neutral colors. Plaid interior. Corduroy collar. Big buttons. My college campus looked like a walking J. Crew catalog.

My barn jacket was light khaki in color, dark brown collar. And the pockets! So big and roomy! My claim to fame was the time I was able to sneak a 12-pack of beer (Icehouse – what were we thinking??) on my person into Flynn Hall because of my barn jacket. Cans in the outside pockets, cans on the inside pockets, maybe one or two in the small of my back. This feat could not have been accomplished without my trusty barn jacket.

The place the barn jacket truly came into its own was for parties at the Caves. When I went to Stonehill College, it was surrounded by woods. Now, those woods have been leveled to make room for dorms and buildings. But back in the day, following a path behind New Hall (the new dorm that no one could apparently name?), up hills and through trees and around thickets, there was a clearing with huge boulders. This could be one of those times that the boulders felt huge looking at them through my beer googles, but if I saw them today theywould just be regular sized rocks.

The barn jacket was the perfect outerwear for the Caves. It was likely the only coat I had at college or was willing to wear out, jury is still out on that one. No one gets cold in college. Hundreds of kids would gather at the Caves to drink and party. I think there might have been music if someone had enough batteries to power their boom box (hey kids today, your lives are so pampered with music libraries in your pockets!) and we’d listen to Pearl Jam or Nirvana or Oasis. Someone made a bonfire in the middle of a wooded area, tended by drunk twenty year olds (how did we not burn down the town?), which looking back seems like a sure fire way to draw attention to underage drinking in the woods. “Hey Earl, do you see that FIRE over there on the top of that hill? Wonder what that is?”

The barn jacket held many purposes on Caves nights.

Transporting beer
Providing a nice little shield for your privates when you had to pee in the woods
Warmth (questionable during winter months)
Making it nearly impossible to find your friends in a sea of neutral-colored barn jacket-wearing drunk kids
Repelled any beer spilled on you
Camouflaged you when you were running from campus police

If you’re getting nostalgic for your barn jacket reading this post, you’re in luck. They. Are. Everywhere! Long and short lengths. Variety of colors. Snaps, zips or buttons. Quilted or canvas. A style for every day of the week.

And if you want to go old school, J. Crew is selling a vintage barn jacket this year for $188!

NOTE: I’m sad to say, that the Caves no longer exist at Stonehill College. They are now dorms or buildings or some shit. I feel sorry that the students do not get to experience a Caves night. My 22nd birthday was celebrated at the Caves at a party during the day (man, we were bold!) and I will never forget running through the woods being chased by campus police careful to not spill a drop of beer out of my red solo cup. Now, they have fancy lounges and bars on campus, and I feel sorry for them. You have not lived a true college experience unless you wake up hungover with twigs and leaves out of your hair, and you glance over to your desk chair for the comforting sight of your barn jacket hanging on it (most likely with mystery stains on it).

I love my feet.

When we lived in Boston I was working in the advertising department at Filene’s (remember Filene’s??). One of the perks of the job was having access to the sample sales to unload merchandise that was photographed for the catalogs, since it couldn’t go back on the selling floor. Each department would hold a sample sale down in the buyers’ “offices” (cubicles) and all the advertising folks would scamper down from the 8th floor to be first in line (if you didn’t get there early you would be left with slim pickings). I would come home with $15 comforters, $2 towels and $10 handbags.

The best sample sale BY FAR was for shoes. You see, I am a sample size 6 shoe. When photographing shoes for a promotion, they would shoot the smallest size which was almost always a 6. Once shot, the shoes usually didn’t go back on the selling floor (they were marked with a big X on the bottoms) and they’d be at the next sample sale.

The beauty of the shoe sample sale – compared to the bedding sample sale – is that while everyone could use a duvet, very few people had size 6 feet.

On shoe sample sale day my friend and forever shopping partner would get the call from the shoe buyer that the sale was on. I’d grab an empty shopping bag and we’d sneak down the back staircase, through the maze of cubicles until we reached the small conference room which contained one long table covered in never-worn shoes, all a size 6 and all $5 a pair.

That’s right. $5 a pair!

Leopard calf hair ankle booties! Red kitten heels! Pink ballet flats! Black Mary Janes! I bought them all. I had a very impressive shoe collection for a twenty-something making $30k a year as a copywriter.

When I left my job at Filene’s and we moved out of South Boston (7 boxes of shoes in the moving van), I arrived at my new job with an impressively strong shoe game. And I loved wearing every pair. Each day I’d dress and show up to work in heels. Not only was I able to walk around the office all day in pointy toed boots and platform wedges, I drove the hour to and from work wearing them! Wearing heels make me feel glamorous, but they also enabled me to wear pants without hemming them to fit my 5 foot frame. I was literally wearing heels from 7am until 8pm every day. I was, apparently, slightly insane.

Fast forward a decade or two, and you will have a hard time finding a shoe with any height in my closet. Waaay in the back I have a pair of black heels that make my feet weep after wearing them for only an hour. I could potentially get a few hours out of a wedge, but that’s about it.

My closet is filled with flats and sneakers. I might as well own stock in Rothy’s I have such an embarrassing number of pairs #sorrynotsorry.

Back to my feet.

Once, I was coming home from work on the T in Boston (wearing jeweled kitten heeled thong sandals) and a very nice homeless man was staring at me until he finally drunk shouted at me: “You have really beautiful feet!” I was flattered.

My feet are small and proportioned. My toes behave accordingly, and are in perfect descending order of length. My feet look good in any shoe, because every shoe looks good in the prototype size 6. In the summer, my feet turn a beautiful bronze from the sun.

And the best part about my feet? They always stay the same size! So while I have bins of pants that span 4 sizes, my shoes have always fit perfectly and never disappoint me.

I could always count on my feet.

That is, until my feet started failing me.

Tag: Fashion

Ode to the Barn Jacket

Putting my best foot forward.