This has been such an interesting read!
This thread is full of extremely informative insights from many members and parts of the world.
I was especially interested by the recent Angie-Suz exchange about Canadian weather, and because I'm a Canadian and can't resist when it comes to share one's opinion about our national favorite topic, I will chime in. I too lived on the west coast for 10 years but I'm from the eastern part of the continent, and I think it in this east-west divide that lays the answer. We tend to underestimate how much of contrasting climates both places are. For instance, in the east the disparity between winter and summer is so vast that it's as if we lived in two distinct countries. Summers are tropical. Tokyo-in-mid-July-waiting-for-a-train-in-a-crowdy-station kind of tropical. The air gets so damp, so still, so muggy that you write by hand and when you raise your arm the sheet remains stuck on it. Extremely cold A/C are found in some governement offices, but are not as widespread an automatic as they are in the States, and I wonder if it hasn't anything to do with the fact that we must also pay for heating energy wise, and that summers are relatively shorter here. (On this note I have found that the culture of cooling things, serving them at brumal temperatures, adding ice in your drinks and blurting out Chill out! loosely and largely for every occasion is a very American thing). In the east, winters are long, cold, moody, and display a cocktail of everything meteorology can offer. One thing for sure, the weather will not bore you. Easterners tend to think of west coast as the *warm* place. And then when easterners think warm, they erroneously think Barbados warm. Nothing could be further trom the truth. My best friends in Victoria and Seattle were those ultra thick cotton hoodies from Lululemon. On the west coast, I actually discovered the whole topper aesthetics, and that's when I started to think it was cool to wear pants under dresses, tees under shirts, as well as scarves and hats or caps. Suz mentionned meeting a Manitoban claiming the problem was the dampness, and I see where he was coming from (prairies are dry), but I disagree. On the west coast, what makes it colder, especially in the summer ("refreshingly cool", as my mother and other warm blooded people say, yet donning full sleeve toppers) is the wind, coming from the Pacific ocean. It was a pleasure to take a mid-day stroll and remove toppers, tie them around my waist... but an hour later, shivers down my arms and neck would remind me I needed that extra layer!
So here, That was my two cents.
Sterling, I don't know where you live, but maybe this is where you experience confusion. Angie being someone who runs cold, and living on the west coast, understandably devotes space and energy into incorporating toppers to outfits. But I get that in other parts of the world, and for example in the eastern part of Canada or the States in summer months, this need is less pressing.
Right now, like Suz said, the eastern part has been literally deprived of any sort of spring whatsoever, so all of our spring items remain unworn.
(phew! This was a long message, I'm sorry)
