I love pea coats. I have owned a pea coat since my college days in the late nineties. But just like many romances, I didn't set out to love pea coats.
The first time I bought a pea coat, I had actually planned to buy a leather jacket. I had seen several ladies on campus donning leather jackets, and they didn't look like they had plans to wave flags at a drag race later that afternoon. In fact, I thought these young women possessed a rather sophisticated fashion sense. Leather was no longer only for greasers and bondage stuff anymore.
Being a college student, I couldn't afford to buy my own leather jacket, so I asked for one for Christmas. I received a gift card. Oops! A gift certificate. (That's what we called them in the nineties.)
One afternoon, still home from college on winter break, I went shopping. I tried on a whole bunch of jackets—leather, suede, wool, fleece, bulky ski, etc. It was on that shopping trip that I found and fell in love with my first double-breasted pea coat.
When I showed up at my parents' house with my new pea coat, my mother said, "A leather jacket didn't quite fit your personality. This is much more you."
Fast forward twenty-plus years, and I am only on my third pea coat. This should tell you three things about me:
1. I have pretty much worn the same clothing size for almost two decades.
2. I buy the exact same thing and wear it until it's in really bad shape. This is my buying philosophy for tech products too.
3. I still dress like I did in the nineties, give or take a few floppy Blossom-style hats.
I don't think the pea coat will ever go out of style though. According to the totally accurate historical source, Wikipedia, the pea coat has been around since the 1720s at least.
All this to say, I just bought a new pea coat. I had owned my old one for over ten years. I tried to make it work, but the coat was pilling. The material felt rough and worn, and the lint it collected refused to come off with a roller. It was time to upgrade to a new pea coat.
My husband, Dan, tagged along. We just celebrated our fifteenth wedding anniversary, so this most likely wasn't his first pea coat quest.
At the store, I picked out a few styles and sizes. Dan stood in front of the mirror with me and acted as my coat rack, meaning I would hang the coats I had already or was getting ready try out on his arms, and he would say nice things like:
"That one looks awfully big. Are you sure you shouldn't try the smaller size?"
After finding the perfect pea coat (which was, in fact, the smaller size), I found a register and joined the checkout line. When it was my turn, the clerk looked at it admiringly.
"I love this coat," she said.
She was quite a bit older than I was, but that didn't seem relevant until she added, "I just got one of these for my mother."
Dan choked back a chuckle and attempted to cover it up with a little cough.
"I'm sorry," I hissed to him as we left the store, "but I don't look like an old woman in this coat if you ask me."
"No," Dan responded in haste, "of course you don't!"
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