Horny Toad Gia Dress
July 27, 2010
I really intended to stop with the dress thing for a while, but then this little number arrived for a spot of pre-Outdoor Retailer coverage so, you know, I’m obligated. That was pretty much my thought process when I opened the Horny Toad package. I am the first to tell you that I’m over 35 so “cute” “strappy” and “short” are not really things I tend to look for in a dress. When I pulled the Gia out of the package in all honesty I thought I’d try it out, wear it a few times because that’s my job, and then give it to a member of the younger set that didn’t mind their bra straps showing. Boy oh boy was I just WRONG. Not about the bra straps thing – just bear with me, I’ll come back to that.
I have this method; a process, if you will, of trying things on that have any sort of appearance/fashion component. If it’s not a super technical piece of gear that pretty much means that I use this process on everything. Yes, I care how I look in the clothes I am wearing even if I am contractually or by implication obligated to wear them, so sue me. Hm, perhaps using the words “sue me” and “contractually” in the same sentence is not really the best policy. Anyway, my trying-on process. Here’s the thing: usually when people try things on, they look in the mirror while they are putting them on, then tug and turn and gaze and peer at themselves before they finally decide whether they like the item or not. No, people, NO. That is the wrong way to do it. Do it this way: put the item on without even looking in the mirror, ESPECIALLY not while you are actually IN THE PROCESS of putting the clothes on. Clothes coming off looks sexy and nice, clothes going on looks awkward and unfortunate. You will not like ANY clothes if you watch yourself putting them on. Think I’m kidding? Go put on a tube top while watching in the mirror.
OK, so put the item on, then walk away from the mirror without looking. If you’re at home (I can’t be the only Internet shopper out there), go do something else. If you are at a store, I dunno, go do a lap. Give up your dressing room, it’s OK. Then in a few minutes, casually walk by the mirror and steal a glance at yourself as you walk by. If you think “Hey! Look at that fine thing, there!” your clothing item is a winner. If you still think “hum, hmm, not sure, maybe it’s too tight in the ass?” or what have you, then no, the item is not for you. Stay with this process and you can’t go wrong.
So I put this dress on, with its sheer cottony feel and relaxed lines and kind of ruched, frilly little straps on without looking in the mirror. I really loved the way it felt and thought it would the perfect swimsuit cover up, which is funny because I’ve never needed a swimsuit cover up in my life. Swim suits in Alaska are also known as dry suits so you don’t need to cover them up, and when I go to Mexico I pretty much live in my bikini so this thing known as a “cover up” is a new concept to me. But this dress just begs to be slipped on over a bikini after a day at the lake. It’s soft, light, pretty (the process! I’m not supposed to be looking yet), and comfortable.
My mirror drive-by revealed that this dress is also really, really flattering. I am not just saying that because I am full of myself. In this dress, yes, I am full of myself, but that’s the cause-effect thing. The Gia is adorable. I know this not only because I like what I see in the mirror, but because my Gearguy came home and said “wow, that’s really cute.” He’s not given to observations about my appearance so this was a big deal, everyone.
Now, back to the bra strap thing: skinny straps are usually bad news, especially when paired with a lightweight dress. There are people who are (I accidentally just typed “whoare” which you may choose to take as a Freudian slip if you are so inclined) comfortable with that level of personal anatomy display, but I am not one of them. I find bra-wearing to be highly appropriate in most situations. So I was stunned and quite thrilled to find that the cute little ruched Gia straps are pretty much bra-friendly! Someone is really doing the math, here. Bra straps can’t be seen at all from the front. AT ALL. From the back and side, you can see them a little bit depending on the style of bra you are wearing. That is forgivable for this dress, believe me. I don’t own any strappy dresses because of the bra strap issue, but now I see the error of my ways. There are strappy dresses that can be worn in a tasteful manner and this is one of them.
At 5′5″ the length falls about an inch above my knees; very nice for summer weather. My sample is a flattering, summery melon color but I believe the dress comes in darker colors as well.
It’s a shaped, fitted dress with enough movement to make you look relaxed and elegant. I asked for a size up because of my trend towards more relaxed dress-fit, but if you want a tighter look, get your regular size; it won’t be TOO tight. To be honest with my readers, I think the price point on this dress is a little high at $63, but you can get it on sale for fifty-something which is completely worth it. It’s one of the most comfortable pieces of the summer so I highly recommend it. It truly is a great swim cover up and would be presentable at all but the snootiest of restaurants (because they don’t allow anything that even LOOKS like it might be made of cotton).
And just to add to the already kind of ludicrous length of this dress post, the official product description says the dress is made of “slubbed” fabric, whatever the hell that is. Maybe that refers to the kind of multi-shade textury feel and look of the fabric, but there you go. It’s slubbed. Have at it and enjoy!
REI Willow Skirt
July 17, 2010
OK, so this is not a dress. It’s a skirt. It’s kind of close, and it’s not like the dress thing will go on forever, so just deal, OK?
This is one hell of a cute skirt, and it would have to be for this over-35-reviewer to give the thumbs up. Really, I am finally becoming familiar with the concept of “age-inappropriate” clothing and believe me, it exists. However, this skirt is thankfully free of anything like that. It’s cute but not limitingly (eh….New Word Time!) so; as in, you can still be thirty-seven and wear this skirt around town without feeling like a junior high student even though the skirt is best described as “cute”. There is a stitched flower detail on the side which admittedly is kind of borderline as far as age range. Call me stodgy but I don’t think grown women should go around with flowers and rainbows stitched onto their clothing unless they are Mariah Carey. No, not even then. But the stitching on the Willow skirt is subtle enough to be forgivable. The skirt’s got four pretty handy pockets, two in front and two in the back, which also lend a bit more styling to the look. You can even actually use the pockets for holding stuff – the front ones are stretchy and fit more than you think they do just from looking at the picture. The length is really nice; just above the knee which, combined with the slight flare of the skirt makes a cute, fun, flattering look while protecting your assets from prying eyes and wayward wind gusts.
Looks, price, ease of use – all thumbs up. Where you are going to run into trouble with this garment is the sizing. I was unable to find the skirt in my regular size on the clearance rack (where I exclusively shop) and REI.com
was out of so I bought a size up because if I tugged it down to my hips I could still wear it. Even so, I do at times get a tad, ah, obsessive about finding the gear that I want, so I kept checking back on the web site. Lo and behold, one day they had one in my regular size! On sale! In a different color than the one I already had. The new color was “gunmetal” and the one I already had was “greystone” otherwise known as “grey” so I thought “gunmetal” would be pretty close, maybe a different shade of grey or black. Well, no, in women’s gear world, “gunmetal” color is purple. Huh.
Anyway, I tried on the new purple skirt right away just to revel in the glee of having a skirt that fit better than the too-big one. However, the purple skirt fit exactly the same! What?? I compared the two, holding them up and matching the seams, and they are EXACTLY the same size. The number shown on the label is not the same, but the skirts are EXACTLY the same. Hmmmm. Off I went to the local REI to take the purple skirt back. I bet you can predict what happens next – yep, I check the sale rack and they have a “greystone” skirt in the correct size! So I grab it and compare it to the too-big one that I happened to be wearing. The smaller skirt was, this time, ever so slightly smaller than the too-big one. So it fit slightly better. It was definitely NOT a full size smaller as the label stated. But, better is better so I did a little fancy wrangling and returned the purple skirt while trading the too-big grey one that I was wearing with the slightly less too big grey one on the rack; which, yes, meant that I had to go take off the skirt I was wearing and hand it back while buying a new one at the same time. This was a return-exchange situation that gave the cashier a bit of an interesting time. But he pulled it off and I’m happy with the skirt I ended up with.
So the lessons here are that REI has a great return/exchange policy, but they have pretty unpredictable sizing and could up their QA/QC component, as this is not the first time I’ve talked about REI brand sizing issues. Skirts should not be leaving the factory with different size labels if they are exactly the same size skirt. We can’t do much about that, admittedly, but we can take from this the important idea that sizing is just a number and that label means nothing. If the garment fits then just buy it. Don’t take that little number on the label personally. It’s not about you. It’s about what fits. In general, I would go for a size down from your usual with this skirt, but be prepared for anything. For all I know they’re just stitching labels on random skirts just to have a laugh.
Patagonia Vitaliti Dress
July 15, 2010
The dress obsession continues – and leads to the inevitable letdown. I thought dresses could do no wrong! They are the answer to everything! Buy thousands of them! Well, buy one more, anyway. I saw a picture of this dress in a catalog and fell victim to the siren song of the Catalog Model. She looks so great in it! It’s perfect! How can it NOT look equally great on me?
Well, er, it doesn’t. This dress doesn’t seem to know what body type it wants. It’s kind of A-line, kind of empire waist, kind of small on top and big in the middle…I don’t know. Maybe it wants a much skinnier, taller person, I thought. Then I read a consumer review from a tall woman who thought this year’s Vitaliti was too short for her; she didn’t like it either. Maybe it wants a curvier person. Who knows. All I know is that it didn’t flatter me. I’m sure there are some body types for which this dress will work well. They’re just not mine. The product info says this has a “slim fit” but on my body type it was only slim on top and on bottom. The middle was kind of boufy and pouchy (not a good look, and not a slim look either), which kind of leaves me thinking “buh?” Because of my experience with the Patagonia Bandha dress, I bought a medium instead of my usual small, but had I bought the small, I would have been mortified by the uber clinginess. Also not a good look. Well, maybe for the meatpacking district, but not for my ‘hood.
Other than that, it’s a nice, pretty dress with good features. The wrinkle-free fabric would be nice for travel and the simplicity is appealing. It’s got a helpful built in shelf bra, which, in fact, was another eye opener for me. In this review I made fun of padded bras, and the manufacturers of the item replied, letting the readers know that the padding is for concealment as much as for enhancement. Well, I never quite understood their point until now. Needless to say, the Vitaliti dress did not have enough concealment for my comfort level. And it is not a bra-friendly dress (spaghetti straps are just kind of like that, eh) so if you are the modest type, maybe this one isn’t for you either.
I’m sure there’s some lucky model girl out there who looks great in this. I look great in a lot of things, but not this. I’m disappointed, but not discouraged. Bloody, but not bowed? Whatever. Tomorrow: yet another dress review.
Patagonia Bandha Dress
July 11, 2010
I told you that you’d be seeing a lot of dresses on this site these days, so here we are, with two dress posts in a row. The short story is that this is a gorgeous little number; very classy. I can’t bring myself to try to hike or to do anything rough and tumble in this one. I can see bringing it traveling, as in, civilized traveling, not trekking or bushwhacking or anything. It’s a no-brainer choice for a stroll down the banks of the Seine or a relaxed evening dinner (which was the sum total of my “test” for this dress. The dinner, that is, not the stroll down the banks of the Seine. Which would have been a great gimmick for this review though). Incredibly flattering and sophisticated, it features a rather sexy bandeau-style bodice while retaining classy and reassuring full coverage. It’s bra-friendly and features fabric stout enough to soothe see-through worries. The length is a little above mid-calf so it’s a pretty low-pressure number, though you’d never really guess it when seeing it on. It looks much more expensive and “time consuming” than it is, if that makes any sense. And if you’ve had to struggle to find that perfect ensemble for a pack-light-stay-versatile-look-nice type of trip, that makes perfect sense.
I learned my lesson about leaving out the sizing info last time, and it’s worth noting that this dress is “slim fit” (it even says so on the tag). This seemed to translate into “tight fit” but not uncomfortably so. If you like a more clingy line, buy your regular size. If you want it a bit more forgiving, go a size up. I’m usually a small but I went with a medium on this one because I’m getting old enough that sucking in the tummy after a big pasta meal is not only uncomfortable but also too much of a pain in the ass to bother with. I didn’t want to have to think about it so a size up was right for me. The bodice is still flatteringly form fitting but I don’t have to obsess over underwear choice, if you catch my drift. So, another day, another great dress. As of this writing, it’s on sale, too, so click the picture above and get a great dress for a great deal.
GoLite Cayambe Dress
July 8, 2010
You can expect to see quite a few dress reviews coming up, and you can thank GoLite for that. They send this cute little number for me to try out, and I promptly fell in love with it and became obsessed with dresses. Dresses for hiking, dresses for biking, dresses for travel, dresses for everything. And this is the one that started it all. I’ve had some sort of epiphany and I don’t know what I was thinking all these years. Planning out ensembles and outfits – I could have just grabbed a dress and gone. This sounds elementary, but as a woman who spent most of her girlhood AVOIDING dresses, it wasn’t that intuitive a leap for me. Dresses were for events and formal occasions, not for, you know, fun. When I first started this site, I never would have thought I’d be reviewing dresses and calling them “gear” but these days, they really are. It’s common now to find me on my daily hike in a dress, or running in a skirt, and even wearing dresses to casual occasions. And I am getting very sick of hearing “you look like a real girl!” or some such comment from, well, everyone I know.
I just love the concept – a super packable, wrinkle-free, quick drying reversible travel dress that doubles as a hiking outfit and can easily go out to a fancy dinner as well. I was skeptical of the reversible idea, as in past iterations (meaning: my second grade wardrobe) it has not seemed to be implemented all that well, but the Cayambe is perfectly designed to serve as two dresses in one. My favorite color combo is the one shown above, the light blue paired with dark grey – it’s gorgeous and with the dark grey on the outside, you even have a hope of keeping it at least looking clean after a hike or other adventure. There is a variety of color options available so you’re bound to find something you like.
I appreciate the bra-friendly straps and bodice, and the well-thought out ruching at the bust which prevents gappage. That’s right, bend and stretch as you please; you won’t be giving a peep show while you do it. Well, it IS a dress, so you know, bend and stretch as you please within reason and you won’t give a peep show.
Dresses are one of those options that women don’t appreciate as much as they should. Sure, we typically don’t get as many gear options as the dudes (and Geargals is of course working to help change that) but the humble dress has certainly come a long way. It’s no longer a hindrance to outdoor sport – it’s an enhancement. Now, WE get the best gear: the simplest, most versatile, and easiest-to-pack gear option on the market. Now, I have no problem with dudes in dresses and I do know a probably higher-than-average number of men who are willing to wear a dress or skirt. But I think dudes are really missing out, here. I love hiking in a dress; it’s cooler and simpler; a nice space-saver. I don’t have to think about the whole shirt-pants-shorts-capris thing; just throw on the dress and there you are – dressed. I love it. The hiking/travel dress concept is so good that my gearguy has started wistfully talking about wanting to wear a kilt. This I gotta see.
Anyway, back to the Cayambe – for those worried about the modesty factor, you don’t have to worry. The full, swishy skirt can be easily arranged to properly cover yourself in any sitting position, and there is more than enough drape to hide panty lines and other bulgy bits – a good thing, for this is a very lightweight item with thin fabric. The cut is a bit empire-waistish, which some will like and some will not. I don’t tend to like an empire waist, but I don’t mind this one since the cut of the dress is fitted enough to avoid the pregnant-lady look. It’s a cute, attractive cut but modest enough to wear to work with no qualms. Most importantly, it’s a great functional option for travel or hiking. Enjoy!
EDIT – A reader wrote in to ask me about sizing, so here’s the skinny. The Cayambe is true to size, maybe even a little generously. I usually wear a small and that’s just about right for me in this dress as well. I tried a size M as well and although it worked OK, it was just a bit too voluminous. Very comfy though. Long story short: order your normal size.
REI Sahara Convertible Pants
May 29, 2010
A good pair of convertible pants is really invaluable. They suit a variety of temperature ranges, vegetation situations, and packing limitations, not to mention tanning opportunities. Doesn’t it suck when you find unexpected sunshine but are wearing long pants? Personally I like to get a little vitamin D on my lower extremities every now and again, so I am always looking for good convertible pants. However, I always end up with a pair of plain old REI Sahara pants. If that sounds strangely worded – believe me, I meant it that way. I always end up with these pants, but I don’t think they are the best that convertible pants can be.
First, the issue of fit is always a problem with these. This is really only an issue in the women’s version in my opinion. REI changes the women’s version almost every year, redesigning, resizing, recutting, adding things, deleting others…it’s maddening. Go to REI to get these pants and you really don’t know what you’re going to find. This year I tried on a few pairs to find that although REI had kindly tried to address the previous version’s issues with the Too-Tapered-Leg Syndrome (which resulted in the dreaded Mom Pants look), they have really gone too far in the other direction. This year’s women’s Sahara has massively elephantine lower legs. You can’t see it in the picture above, you really have to just put them on. They are seemingly half again the size of the width of the thighs. They look ridiculous. They are so ludicrous that I couldn’t stomach buying them even at the reasonable price of about $40. Not that I liked the previous version all that much, either – I’m not a tapered leg fan and I’ve NEVER thought that REI “got it” when it came to women’s fit because they always have a stupid high waist on the Sahara pants as well as the equally dumb looking tapered legs. Eighties, much? I usually wore them with the button undone and the waist folded down so that the top of the pants wasn’t practically around my rib cage. I had to live with the tapered leg. The legs were never long enough either, and even though I enjoy getting dirty and stinky doing fun outdoors stuff, I am a little vain about my look. High waist and tapered-leg waiting-for-a-flood pants were not what I was going for.
But the thing is that no one else is making good convertible pants for women either. And the others are making said not-good convertible pants at a much higher price point, so whenever I need them, I end up slouching back to REI because I could get a pair that I could tolerate without making my checking account cry. Some women even manage to look good in the Sahara pants – and now that I think about it, it’s usually shorter women. Maybe the shorter leg length isn’t tapered as much because it’s just cut off before it can get too skinny, if you follow me on that. Anyway, I stabbed my old pair of Saharas with an ice tool and punctured them, so it was time for another pair so off I went to the big box store of the outdoor industry to get another pair. This time I thought my luck had run out, because the cut of the lower legs was just intolerable. From the leg zipper on down they looked like an entirely different pair of pants, like someone had zipped XXL size legs onto a S size pair of shorts. Buying a smaller size made it look a little better, but then they were too constricting for climbing and what have you. There I was, without a pair of convertible shorts, out of luck. Just as I was about to leave, I remembered how much I used to like borrowing my boyfriend’s pair of Saharas for climbing – they were too baggy, but that’s fine for climbing. So for the sake of trying, I grabbed a few pairs of the men’s version and hey! They are just like the old design, with a few pocket tweaks. So I ended up buying the men’s version. They are baggy, true, but not ludicrously so, and I have full range of motion, long enough leg, less leg tapering, and no ballooning of the lower legs. They do have too many goofy pocket things but I can live with it.
Technically speaking, the Saharas are pretty all right. They have SPF fabric which I’ve always found weird, but then again I’ve always lived in Alaska where SPF clothing is not really a hot item. The best feature of these pants is the quick-drying fabric; it’s pretty great. You can get dunked in a river or sweat out a few liters and they are dry again in a jiffy. The zippers are kind of hit and miss; they might last, they might not. But if they don’t last, REI will let you exchange them in a usually hassle-free manner. I don’t like the goofy cargo pockets because they just serve to make hips look bigger, especially if you actually USE the pockets to put stuff in. They make everything look like a throwback to 1970’s boy scout camp. Really, who needs these giant cargo pockets? Just take them off and the pants would look a lot better. Maybe they think you’re going to stuff the legs in the pockets when you zip them off? Now that would not be a good look.
I REALLY don’t like the velcro on the pockets because I try to minimize velcro in almost all situations. But I do like that they are reasonably dependable, sturdy, quick drying, and generally tolerable convertible pants. Plus, the price point is really hard to beat. Even though they aren’t perfect, when you catch them on sale they are about $40. Really, don’t buy them for more than that because they will go on sale again soon enough. I don’t recommend this year’s women’s version but you can find a pretty standard fit in the men’s section so if that can work for you, I’d try it. If you buy them baggy enough you don’t even have to cope with the high waist issue.
I’m having a little trouble wrapping this up because I’m not stoked about the fact that no one can get it together to make good convertible pants for women, but I’m OK with buying a men’s version if it works for me. These pants are so cheap it’s hard to go TOO wrong. So there you have it. This is an awfully long article about one pair of convertible pants but sometimes the amount of thoughts I have on a product exceeds the generally accepted guidelines for the amount of time spent on thinking and therefore writing about them. To sum up: REI Sahara Convertible Pants for Women Men: Good Enough.
2006 Cambria Chardonnay
March 4, 2010
You can’t review wine on a gear site! Surely not!
Of course I can, it’s my site and I’ll wine if I want to. Today I opened my last bottle of the 2006 Cambria Chardonnay, purchased last month in a moment of serendipity in a Fred Meyer in Bellingham, and I was struck with a nostalgia for the adventures, misadventures, and gear testing shenanigans of the last year, many of them fueled by this fine vintage. Alas, it appears that the 2006 is almost all gone, replaced on the shelves of the local liquor stores with the 2007, which isn’t as good. So I thought I’d post a small tribute to this lovely wine – a nice, big, classic chardonnay – which was truly the best value of 2009 at about $15 a bottle, especially because without it we wouldn’t have gotten the ideas for so many crazy trips. Just looking at the label makes me think back to the epic Anchorage summer of 2009 when temperatures topped 80 degrees for weeks at a time and chardonnay was really the only way to go in those sultry evening hours. Shut up, 80 degrees is a big deal for Anchorage.
So goodbye, 2006 Cambria Chardonnay, we will miss you.
Olympic Mittens
February 16, 2010
Boy, am I glad I wasn’t running this site during the Salt Lake City Olympics, or I’d be stuck featuring one of those goofy berets that was all the rage back then. They were the must-have Olympics-wear, seen on all the US athletes and a good portion of the spectators. Not like I didn’t try to get one, don’t get me wrong – but the line for berets was so long that I had to bail to catch my flight. Little did I know that I would have a second chance at that beret eight years later at the Vancouver 2010 Games. Yep, they still sell those berets! Something about how easy it was to buy them made me pass it up this time, though. Maybe it was the thrill of the hunt that made them so desirable. Likewise with this year’s hot item, the red Olympics mittens. There was a rumor going around for a while that the mittens were sold out, but nothing could be further from the truth. Believe me when I say that they are everywhere. Every Canadian in the world has at least one pair, and of all the Olympics garb at the store, the mittens were by far the easiest to obtain (probably because all Canadians already have their own). So don’t despair, you too can have the Olympics souvenir of the year. They’re even affordable, at about $10 a pair!
The best thing about them, aside from being immediately able to fit into any crowd here in Vancouver, is that they are actually really nice mittens. Fleece lined and cozy, they will honestly keep your hands warm while you bundle up in the bleachers to watch the events. You might even find them a little too toasty at the alpine events’ barely-almost-not-quite-freezing temperatures. Best of all, though, you’ll fit in, and when you are surrounded by a bunch of lovely, polite, nice, charming Canadians, what better feeling could there be?
Pick yours up at the Hudson’s Bay Co.
Columbia Jammin’ Journey Fleece
February 6, 2010
Could the name for this fleece be any dorkier? Here we go on a jammin’ journey! Good thing I love this top so much or I might not be able to get past the name. Ironically I wore this fleece every day on my own jammin’ journey to Canada – it was my trip staple because of its comfort, warmth, and, yes, cute looks. Wrinkle free and comfy, it didn’t even get too stinky on the five day trip, which I’m so sure is more due to the miracle nonstink fabric than the fact that I was basically just sitting still in a car for hours upon end. Plus, I don’t stink. Right?
Every few years I come across a half-zip fleece that sparks a sort of obsession. When I find a fleece that I like, I have been known to buy several of varying colors just to make sure that I’m never without. I still have a stockpile of past favorites in the closet that I just can’t let go of. What’s more versatile than a good fleece? The “Jammin’ Journey” (yeesh, do I have to keep typing that over and over?) is more versatile than most, with a superlong zipper that fits over a helmet or opens to allow airflow in those in-between temperatures. Best of all, this fleece has a really great cut. It’s longish but not ridiculously so and trim without being supertight. To my endless delight, it also has perfectly cut sleeves that accommodate actual muscles, and are long enough to actually cover my wrists and stay put when my arms are bent. Best of all, NO THUMBHOLES. I used to love thumbholes, but recently it seems that every single top out there has thumbholes and the accompanying superlong sleeves. Agh! Enough! I feel an editorial coming on.
So, no thumbholes on the JJ. Excellent! How many colors does it come in?
Buy ‘em all up before I clean them out.
Mountain Khakis Cottonwood Cords
December 31, 2009
There is this thing that happens to me every time I write a new review of something I really like. No matter how much abuse I put an item through, it lasts and lasts – until I write up a review, at which time the product without fail encounters some freak accident and gets torn or destroyed. So I’ve taken to delaying posts of stuff I really like. Sadly, though, a job is a job and eventually I have to just get on with it. So I had most of this post written when I took a break to go outside and help the Gearguy bring in some of his stuff, and – it happened. The button on one of the back pockets of these cords got caught on the sliding door and pop – no more button. Argh!
So this is the last time I am going to write a review of anything from Mountain Khakis. Really! Why? Because I like their stuff and I’m tired of losing my MK pants to the Great Post Curse! Sorry, Mountain Khakis, you’re just going to have to send me something I don’t like, or no more posts! I mean it. Send a bad pair of pants, something I don’t care about, please!
So yeah, I like these cords – a lot. When it comes to casual dress, I’ve strictly been a denim person until now. The world of khakis and cords has been a daunting and confusing one – so many options, so few with that elusive combination of looks and comfort. I would hardly have considered myself ripe for conversion, but the Mountain Khakis Cottonwood Cords have done it. I’ve been traveling for the last month and have pretty much been living in these pants – they are so comfortable and cozy, and look good after five straight days of car travel. What more could you want?
Our last trip took us through the Yukon, in sub zero temperatures for five days. I wore the Cottonwood Cords every single day, and my travel companion couldn’t even complain because he wore the same pants every day too. HIS cords gave him a rash, though, so score one more for MK. I loved the comfort of the Cottonwood Cords, which is primarily why I first reached for them, but I was also pleasantly surprised by their warmth. Having Geardog along meant frequent stops for walkies, regardless of the temperature, but I was never cold even after venturing out at 15 below. They are now officially my trusty road trip pants and I’d probably bring them along for any trip in cooler temperatures.
The style is relaxed fit, straight leg with a reasonably low rise. Sizing can be a little large, so order a size down from your regular and expect a relaxed, comfy fit. They don’t wrinkle, they look great, and they can be worn for casual kicking around town and be dressed up to go out to dinner as well. Comfy, stretchy, and cute – isn’t that everything we look for in a pair of pants?
