Friday, May 18, 2012

This Is Not Puce.

not puce 

It's more chartreuse. The Kokatat designers call it "lichen", and the reason I was looking up "puce" yesterday was that I was asking my boyfriend for fashion advice, used the word "puce" at one point and then realized that I wasn't sure that was the right word for this shade of green.

And the reason I as asking TQ, who lives in jeans and t-shirts, for fashion advice is because I just heard back from Jordan at Kokatat about my drysuit yesterday, and they're sending me a replacement for the replacement they sent me a couple years ago.

Thinking back to my last swim (inflation test for the new hybrid lifejacket), there was more water in the socks than usual afterwards. That was also about the time I noticed that the gaskets were on their last season too - they were "alligatored" (network of fine cracks that latex develops just before it goes) pretty badly and I thought maybe they were seeping. Nope, turns out the Gore-Tex is delaminating again.

Fortunately, with Kokatat's Gore-Tex suits warranty, "lifetime" means "lifetime" - they're sending replacement #2.

Unfortunately, they've replaced that nice plum color (in fact a closer relation to puce than the chartreuse I'd always thought of as puce) with the lichen and gray pictured above. You can get that or the classic mango-and-black. I was on the fence - neither of these are colors that appear in my wardrobe at all. The lichen & grey does have a certain Brooklyn hipster thing going on (not that anyone would EVER accuse me of being a hipster but hey, I DO live in Brooklyn and I do eat artisanal food at least once a week month, so maybe a hipster-hued drysuit would fit in), the mango & black has the definite advantage of high visibility.

I was leaning towards mango but I couldn't decide. I figured TQ's the one who's going to be looking at me wearing it the most, and he does have a good eye for color, so I asked him to make the call. He went for the mango too.

Yellow boat, yellow lifejacket, yellow drysuit...gonna have to warn people to bring shades when they paddle with me in the wintertime.

4 comments:

Tillerman said...

Puke and puce are two words in the English language that are often confused and nobody can ever remember which is which, or witch is witch. A bit like abode and adobe.

Seriously, I was reading Mark Spitz's biography of Mick Jagger today. In it Spitz describes Mick, Keith Richards and Brian Jones in their early days, when they were poor unknown starving musicians, living in a small apartment in central London in 1962, eating mainly potatoes. He describes their apartment as a "tiny adobe"!

I don't think so. Don't publishers have editors these days?

bonnie said...

If they'd been living in New Mexico, I'd go for the tiny adobe. Like this one, right?

Central London, maybe not!

PS - nope, we laid off all the editors when the kids began to spell with numbers.


L8R!

Amy said...

I'm picking up the puce one today on sale at Real Expensive Incorporated thought I would be able to drop a few lbs and fit back into the non goretex one I have but alas no - good thing is if I do lose the lbs it can go back to REI reason for return - puce.

bonnie said...

HA! I hear you! That is exactly why I've switched from having a danish for breakfast every morning to having a piece of fruit for breakfast every morning. Seems my metabolism is slowing down in the 40's. Drysuit still fits but if I get much beamier than I am right now it's gonna cost me a significant amount of money!