There’s a day every May when the temperature hits 75 degrees in Columbus and everyone completely loses their shit. I saw it happen last week. I walked outside of school and saw kids walking around in shorts and sandals with shaking hands because it was actually 45 degrees and windy at 7am.
Teachers wearing sundresses and clutching thermoses of coffee for dear life. That dad at pickup wearing his cargo shorts from 2015 with legs so pale he could see veins bulging underneath because HOLY CRAP IT’S BEEN THREE DAYS OF SUNSHINE WE’RE DEFINITELY GOING TO HAVE SUMMER THIS YEAR. I get it.
Ohio weather will make you crazy. One day you’re wearing jeans and thinking, “Hmm, maybe shorts would be nice today.” Next thing you know there’s a freeze warning and you wonder if you dreamed those 70-degree hours.
We Ohioans have mastered the art of dating aloha shirts .
It seems like we just get comfortable with what we think they want, then suddenly they want to go BACK to light wash jeans. Lowkey abusive. Except I kind of did that with dressing for warm weather, too.
Back when I first started teaching, I had this notion I could dress like Scott Stevenson of Golf Digest. You know the type – wearing seersucker suits and linen shirts while casually lounging around golf courses. Anyway, me being dumb thought I could master that look on a budget while riding buses and wiping down blackboards.
Bought some linen button-ups on sale at J. Crew Factory, some light-weight chinos, yada yada yada. Long story short, every time I got out of my car and approached the school I looked like I’d run through a sprinkler because #science.
From there I went COMPLETELY in the other direction. Got so caught up in making sure I didn’t look like a sweaty mess I started dressing like autumn FOREVER. Again, smart idea until that freak heat wave in mid-April of 2019 when I’m standing there sweating bullets in front of 25 eighth graders wearing khakis and a button-up because FFS people WERE complaining it was TOO hot out.
And Sarah from the classroom next door pops her head in and says, “Wayne, did you know it’s 90 degrees out today?” Uhhhh, yep. Too cool. Lesson learned.
Since that day I actually strategize when it comes to dressing for warm – or “promise of warm” – weather. Teaching middle school requires you to LOOK put-together while also being ready for any eventuality. It can be 65 at morning duty and 85 degrees at dismissal.
You can leave your house sunny and reach noon with thunderstorms. You have to be ready for anything. I started with tops and button-ups.
The thing I’ve realised you NEED is what I like to call an overshirt. It’s somewhere in between a jacket and a normal shirt, ideally. Target has this good line now called Goodfellow that makes a legit overshirt.
It’s half cotton, half linen, comes in muted colours that don’t look oily or sweaty, and was like $25. I wear it open over a t-shirt on days that are warm. But throw on a jacket buttoned all the way and now you have a completely new layer.
Bonus: if your school (or office) has crazy-ass air conditioning like mine does, you can button that bitch up and suddenly you’re prepared for Arctic temperatures. Then there are bottoms. See, I will NEVER wear shorts to work until it’s warm … like MAYSCLEARLYWESUMMER types of warm.
To me, wearing shorts when it’s just kinda-sorta warm is like tempting the Ohio gods. THEY WILL SMITE YOU. So my uniform is light-weight chinos.
I have a couple pairs from Old Navy that aren’t TOO thin so they work for days when it’s warm AND days when it’s just kinda sorta warm. The key is getting them hemmed well so you can cuff them without looking like you’re drowning in fabric. Jessica teases me about my “warm-weather weather backup system” but I’m telling you it’s LIFE CHANGING.
Leave a lightweight jumper in your classroom (bonus points if it packs small and you can shove it in your purse or backpack). Keep an umbrella in your car. Heck, pick up a packable jacket at Uniqlo and throw that fucker in there as well.
You’ll thank me when you’re standing outside for an hour at a school program and it suddenly decides to rain and drop 20 degrees. But shoes are where it gets tricky. Summer footwear has to match shorts AND trousers, be practical for potential rain, and not transform intobottomless pits the second humidity rolls around.
Learned that one the hard way when I bought these cute little canvas trainers in the summer of 2018. Sure, they worked with shorts and looked sharp. But they also immediately became portable heaters any time I wore them and had to be outside (like DAILY for playground duty).
Now I only wear leather trainers in the warmer months. They breathe better than you’d think and they pair well with everything. Had these Adidas runabouts for like three years now – which is ancient in my shoe-buying timeline.
Another psychological thing with Ohio and dressing for warmer weather: We WANT it to be warm. We see 75 degrees in May and we’re already wearing shorts because OHMYGODIT’SNOTHINGPOPSUMMER LET’S ALL GO TO THE BEACH. In June we’ll wear sundresses and polo shirts to outdoor graduations while FREEZING because DAMMIT WE WANT IT TO BE SUMMER EVEN THOUGH IT’S 60 DEGREES WITH THE WIND CHILL.
We delude ourselves into thinking it’s warmer than it actually is because we haven’t seen shorts-and-sunshine-worthy temperatures since fucking Halloween. Had this thought last summer. There was this one glorious week in JULY when the temps FINALLY stayed in the 70s and 80s like they were supposed to all summer.
Finally got comfortable enough to commit to summer clothes. Linen-blend shirts? Cheque.
Lightweight trousers? Cheque. Life was great.
Felt awesome not constantly worrying about being overdressed or needing a jacket. Then the following week hit and I was outside at the grocery store parking lot at 7pm wearing some thin cotton button-up because it was 62 degrees and raining. What the actual fuck, Ohio?
Weren’t you just 80 degrees and sunny like TWO DAYS ago? ! WAIT. Wait, hold the phone.
Doesn’t matter what the temperature is when YOU get dressed. It’s about what temperature it’s going to BE LATER that day. And since Ohio weather is a giant clusterfuck, you always need to prepare for what you THINK it’s going to be like, not what you WANT it to be like.
Took me YEARS to learn that, though. Colour palette is also important. Cotton candy colours may as well be spelled W-E-A-T-H-E-R when you wear them here.
Red? Hello adorable shade of pink after your Starbucks ends up sweating on your linen shirt. Bright green?
Did you get hit in the thigh with purple rain? Opt for slightly less saturated colours. Olive green instead of bright green.
Burgundy instead of fire engine red. You still feel like you’re wearing summer colours, but at least they don’t scream “LOOK HOW MANY BAD THINGS HAPPENED TO ME TODAY.” Fabric matters. Light cotton is your friend.
Avoid anything that takes TOO long to dry if at all possible. Learned that lesson when I wore this dickily thick cotton polo on a muggy summer day and it was STILL damp when I took it off at bedtime. Now I look for cotton blends, or anything with at least a little bit of synthetic material mixed in.
Dries quicker, and usually doesn’t wrinkle as bad. Love me some Uniqlo’s dry packaged shirts. They come in muted colours, don’t wrinkle, and are only like $15.
Let me tell you though, the REAL trick I’ve learned is to gauge the temperature that first thing in the morning and dress accordingly. If it’s 55 degrees at 7am, I am NOT trusting that afternoon forecast of 80 degrees to pan out enough to dress like a bitch ass playa. Layers are your friend here.
Throw on that cotton button-up. See what happens. Hit 75 degrees and the sun is shining?
Great!
Take off your jumper but you’ve got backups incase that damn radar thing proves to be wrong…again. Hell, my students have even caught onto my tricks.
I used to get shit for ALWAYS wearing a jacket or sweating profusely because lord forbid I dress too lightly in Columbus. Now kids will occasionally comment on where I got something or that they like my shirt. It’s flattering as heck to be ratted out by your students, not gonna lie.
Jessica teases me that I’ve got better at dressing for warmer weather, but am also borderline obsessed with staying prepared. She’s probably right. I cheque three weather apps each morning and ALWAYS have backup outfits wherever I’m going.
You never know when Ohio will turn on you and decide you’ve had enough summer. But hey, at least I haven’t been caught dead out of dress code in TWO YEARS because of it. Hood up.
