Short Sleeves

I'm fortunate that I can wear whatever I choose to work. In summer that means shorts and short-sleeve shirts. There are corners of the internet that frown on this, but frankly I don't care. If I was going from air-conditioned house to air-conditioned car to air-conditioned office, I'd probably wear pants. But instead of "car," for me that middle section is "public transit." Unfortunately the climate control on public transit is a huge variable; I never know how comfortable my ride is or isn't going to be.

The T has come a long way since I arrived here for college in 1981, when the only "air" on buses came through sliding windows and the air conditioning on the Green Line trains only worked in the front halves of the cars, but even in 2011 I still can't be certain that the bus that I board in the morning will have AC, or will have it on. (There seem to be some drivers who prefer to be warm, and I also believe that some of them leave the AC off intentionally, just to make riders suffer.) Therefore I need to dress for comfort in warm weather.

I like the look of button-front short-sleeve shirts. I also wear polo shirts, but the button-front shirts look just a bit more dignified without sacrificing comfort. (I've tried wearing some of my lighter-weight long-sleeve shirts with the sleeves rolled up, but they still tend to be too warm around the arms with the multiple layers of rolled fabric.) For the past several summers I've worn the same small group of shirts because it was very difficult to find any new ones that I liked. For a long time the prevailing style of short-sleeve shirt was the laid-back, Tommy Bahama-ish print with a straight bottom. Even though I wear my shirts tucked in, I hate shirts with straight bottoms and won't buy them, and I hate anything by TB anyway.

This year things were much better. Many of the places I like to shop had short-sleeve offerings in colorful, attractive plaids. I also found some inexpensive seersucker shirts in nice, bright colors at JCPenney in their American Living line, the one that's designed and produced for them by Ralph Lauren. When this line started a couple of years ago, most of the clothes were slapped with a gaudy eagle logo, but more recently I've noticed that they have toned that down, and now more of the pieces seem to be logo-free, which is great for people like me who hate logos.

I also got shirts from Lands' End, J. Crew, Brooks Brothers, and even one from Old Navy, where I rarely find anything I like. I don't like to spend a lot of money on my summer clothes, because I know they are going to get worn fairly hard and washed more frequently. But if I have enough clothes to rotate through, they are likely to last longer, and by buying stuff that isn't trendy, I'll be more likely to want to hold onto them as long as I can.