Clothes Ramblings

Even though I've lived on Cape most of my life, it's only since I got back from Ireland that I've been noticing really specific things about it. Like, the way Cape Codders dress. It seems like everyone has this uniform which almost no one breaks. They have it in Dublin, too, but their uniform is completely, completely different. Basically, on Cape, until it gets warm (which it doesn't really until June) pretty much everyone under forty or so (the old people all dress like normal old people, but, especially the ones who come to the Christmas Tree Shop, really colorfully) dresses in the same outfit: jeans and a hoodie. And the hoodie is always either navy blue, grey, dark green, army green, brown, or, if you're a girl, pink. Then for shoes, it's fake uggs or converse. Maybe flats. Normal sneakers if you're a boy. Once it gets nicer out, people start to break it up a bit, but for most Cape Codders, that's it.

It's totally different in Dublin. There the girls all dress the same, too (and they dress especially the same if they're walking in groups), but in a completely different way. They never wear jeans, ever. They wear either a skirt with leggings, tights, or no pants at all, or they wear a track suit. And the girl wearing the leggings or tights would never wear a track suit; they're completely different people. (The boy version of that is jeans vs. a tracksuit). When it's cold, everyone wears a pea coat, either black or grey. (On Cape, when it's cold, sometimes people wear coats but mostly they keep wearing their hoodies). Oh, and every girl wears heels. Sometimes they wear boots, but even they often have heels. Unless the girl's wearing a tracksuit; then she wears uggs.

That's mostly just Dublin, though. The other parts of Ireland, girls will wear jeans. Cork especially, I think. They mostly dressed casually there, but it was a mix, which was nice. Of course, I was only there for a week.

Anyway, though, I'm not sure which place is more different from the Dublin dress code- if the wicked hoodie-casual Cape Cod way of dressing or B-Town style. Because in Burlington, people wear lots of different sorts of outfits. For most of the year, because of the snow but also because they're cute, girls wear boots. When it rains, they wear bright, bright rainboots (which I've never seen a Dubliner wear) with cute patterns with whales or owls. As for everything else, people will wear whatever- a flannel shirt, a hoodie, a sundress, a T-shirt with a witty saying, a patterned sweater, a big shirt with leggings. The only thing is that whatever it is is almost always colorful. Even in winter, because then half of everyone wears a bright snowboarding coat, and the other half wears a pea coat, and even a lot of the pea coats are bright, too. The only time it's different is the first warm day of the year, when the girls all go out in lacy white sun dresses. Oh, and if the shoes aren't boots, they're pretty much always flats. Ireland's the only place I've been to where heels are the shoes of choice.