Visiting friends and tourists alike seem completely baffled that this city is 60°F year-round. “But we’re in California!” they’ll say. “Why is it so cold!?” This invariably ends with a trip to the local thrift store so you don’t have to listen to their teeth chatter or lend them your favorite sweater to stretch out and never return. Then, like clockwork, they’ll come back in four months sporting a T-shirt and shorts and exclaim, “But it’s summer!” Just shut up and check out our handy fashion guide for dressing for the seasons.
Summer
Light jacket, Oxford button-up, long pants, comfortable shoes
San Francisco summers are an exercise in sadism. While popular culture reminds us that it’s time for fun in the sun, we’re huddled up inside an artisan coffee shop trying to catch a glimpse of warm sunshine through a heavy curtain of bone-chilling fog. Dress warm.
Winter
Light jacket, Oxford button-up, long pants, comfortable shoes
By comparison, our winters are unreasonably sunny, and while that makes for some fun day-drinking in Dolores Park, the truth is that we’re not drinking to get drunk but rather to stay toasty in the face of goose-bump-raising wind chill. Dress warm.
Spring
Light jacket, Oxford button-up, long pants, comfortable shoes
Spring is a bastard. While the rest of the country gets to watch the leaves change and enjoy a couple of fun “April showers,” we Franciscans are stuck indoors watching the endless downpour of crisp, bitter rain against the evergreen trees that don’t even turn orange, goddamn it. Dress warm.
Fall
Light jacket, Oxford button-up, long pants, comfortable shoes.
Fall is San Francisco’s prodigal son. Having abandoned us for the better part of nine months, he is always welcomed with open arms and the casting off of many a sweater and beanie. However, our darling young one is truly prodigal in his dispersion of pleasant weather, always exhausting his supply right around sundown. And no matter how nice the day has been, it’s back to the ’ol blustery, bleak bullshit. Do you get it yet? Dress warm.