Wednesday, September 28, 2011

PUFF ON THIS


Apparently Norma Kamali invented the puffer for women:

After splitting with her husband, Mohammed (Eddie) Kamali, in the mid-1970s, she took to camping in the woods with a boyfriend. “It was cold,” she recalled, “and I was always getting up at night to go to the bathroom.” On one particularly nippy night, she threw on her sleeping bag and sprinted for the bush. “As I was running,” she said, “I was thinking, ‘I need to put sleeves in this thing.’ ”

Ruth La Ferla for The New York Times

(Photo by The Sart)

18 comments:

  1. Ha, I'll think of this every time I throw on my snowboard jacket. And remember it's badassery.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I didn't know about this. You learn something everyday

    ReplyDelete
  3. that is awesome and so is that hilarious long tag

    ReplyDelete
  4. Wow. Who knew!!? And did you know that Dali designed the Chupa Chups logo?

    ReplyDelete
  5. I very much like that.

    @lauren - After the diatribe yesterday, I have concerns. What if I can't let go of my puffer vest? Even though I live in LA? Are we still friends? I bought it from Eddie Bauer 10 years ago, so if we wait a little bit it will be vintage.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I see these look so good on other people but I know I'd just look like a deranged person in a parachte.

    http://kartepaper.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  7. @Rachel lauren says puffer vests are okay.

    ReplyDelete
  8. @ esb - Oh, thank god. I was afraid I was going to get kicked off the christmas card list once I admitted it.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Nobody worries about this in places where it's so cold everybody has giant puffer coats (i.e. Chicago). Subzero trumps style. Sorry, but there it is.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Would a puffer like the picture keep me warm?

    ReplyDelete
  11. Ok well clearly that lady is a pretty hardcore and awesome. I just remembered we actually wore our sleeping bags during the dawn service for ANZAC Day at Gallipoli, cos it was -4 (28) with a mean, mean wind. So. I may be warming to the puffers a little, just a little! (Warming - ha!)
    I'll remember this when I hit the USA.

    ReplyDelete
  12. it's true, rachel; the vests don't muck up your whole silhouette, and they're occasionally designed rather nicely.

    on eddie bauer, it should be emphasized that his c. 1940 "blizzard-proof" jacket was the first puffer; as esb noted, kamali feminized it to great effect several decades later.

    on the card list, baby, you know you're permanent.

    ReplyDelete
  13. also, mouse, i agree with you on subzero; my whole point with the aussies is that it's never going to get so cold in nyc that you have to go balls to the wall on the fashion v. function spectrum. in a chicago or montreal winter? forget about it.

    ReplyDelete