So I went to a couple different surplus stores today. Look, I’m as free trade and globalist as the next guy, but it kind of bothers me when every single military jacket in the Army-Navy store is labelled “Made in China.” Anyway, the MA-1 apparently doesn’t have the velcro patch on the chest and is huge and bulky besides (probably warm, and it weighs NOTHING, but it’s just too damn big around).
Honestly, what’s driving me here is the notion of Cayce Pollard Units. If you’ve read Pattern Recognition by William Gibson, Cayce is the heroine of the tale. She has a unique “ability” if you want to call it that – she is allergic (to the point of psychosis) to branding, to the point where she can only wear clothing that would be generally regarded as fashionably indistinct anytime from the Second World War to the present. The one thing she has out of the ordinary is a Buzz Rickson’s replica MA-1 jacket, in black – and while Buzz Rickson’s is in fact a real Japanese company whose reproduction is almost artistic in its precision, they never made a black one until after the novel came out.
To be honest, this is as close as I come to a fashion statement. From the time I moved to California until about a month ago, the only jeans I’ve bought are the standard blue Levi’s 501. My daily footwear runs to Dr Martens in black or occasionally brown. My default work shirts are solid color collared sport shirts with no logo other than the WWDC logo on a couple of them. My off-hours shirts run largely to identical gray 2XL American Apparel t-shirts.
Only the jackets tend to run wild – and boy, do they. In the current rotation alone, you see the Vanderbilt softshell, the dark green oilcloth engineer’s coat, the canary-yellow Community Emergency Response Team coat, a plain black rain shell, a black National Geographic fleece that goes under that shell, a couple other Eddie Bauer cold-weather coats, a poorly-chosen jean jacket in brown suede, and (most distinctively) a brown leather Indiana Jones jacket from US Wings. That last was my signature jacket for most of the decade, but it’s proven largely impractical in a place where I have to wear a backpack to and from work every day – and it’s not the best thing for travel. Also, I’m not entirely sure I want to deface it with a couple of patches, even if they are germane to my history.
The big problem is that out here, it’s all layers all the time – it legitimately gets cold at night during the summer, and it’s legit too warm to wear the jacket during the day. It’s like those spring conditions where you always forgot and left your jacket at school. Which means that most of the time, I need something to wear in the morning that will ball up in the backpack in the afternoon. And the Stuff White People Like “performance outerwear” starts to make sense…which is why that Vandy softshell has become the go-to for most of the last year. I’m not sure I want to take it through Europe for two weeks, though – especially since it’s looking like “warm and rainy” is the default condition through much of where we’re going…