The Apparel Oft Proclaims the Ski-Bum

I recently travelled back to Canada (though Montreal rather than beautiful BC this time) to attend an academic conference and, as per my last column, to feast on poutine, pierogies and other such Canadian foodstuffs I’d been craving of late. Anyway, as I was clearing customs - “Hello-bonjour! Yes! It’s me! Back again! Look Immigration Canada, let’s call this thing quits sometime soon and you just let me stay for good. All this to-ing and fro-ing is getting ridiculous” - I took stock of what I was wearing: “jandals” (flip-flops by another name), a bottom-skimming merino dress (one national cliche which rings true is that there’s no shortage of sheep or wool in New Zealand), paua earrings (paua being a type of abalone indigenous to NZ, whose iridescent shell is fashioned into jewellery and other accoutrements), a shoulder bag from Mountain Equipment Co-op and my trusty Nalgene bottle clasped eagerly in hand. I couldn’t have arrived at a more stereotypical mix of Kiwiana and Canadiana had I tried.

Now fashion has never been my forte, my disposable income generally getting channelled into ski-gear and season passes and long-haul flights instead of into designer labels and haute couture. Repeatedly having to pare my life down to 2 x 23kg bags as I move from continent to continent has also impeded me from amassing an extensive wardrobe, so I own very few clothes, really, something which didn’t bode so well for me back in boomtime Dublin (now sadly deceased). With the sudden and dramatic influx of new wealth into the city, spending-spending-spending became the activity of choice and conspicuous consumption and being “done up” took priority over all else. The shinier, newer and dressier the better was the rule of the day, and I simply felt terribly ungroomed and shabby and inadequate as a result.

Indeed, I was a lot more at home with the more casual and practical aesthetic prevailing in BC, dressing in accordance with the elements rather than in spite of them and a trip to the thrift-store being a highlight of the week. The extremes of temperature, I discovered, added a new exigency to staying warm and dry, and function took precedence over form: there’s little point in splurging on a pair of killer heels when they’ll be useless in the snow and slush, or blowing a week’s salary on a wisp of clinging, plunging chiffon when it’s minus twenty outside and there’ll be snow on the ground for the next four months. (Spending a week’s salary on a new pair of skis, on the other hand, seemed a perfectly reasonable and rationale financial outlay.)

Anyway, after a few years bouncing between Fernie and Rossland in a gamut of Gore-Tex, fleece and wicking tops, I was meant to be heading back to Ireland for Christmas and New Year. Knowing I needed to step up my sartorial game to blend back in with the natives, I grimly outfitted myself with an arsenal of glitzy, come-hither attire with which to mark my re-entry into Dublin society. However, rather than making it back to Ireland as planned, I ended up staying in Rossland for the ski-season instead (shocker, I know, who saw that one coming?) with slinky dresses and sparkly tops a-plenty. “Lisa!”, one of my friends exclaimed when I appeared at a potluck in a leopard-skin number one night, “lookin’ to get something going on?”.

New Zealand, I’ve since discovered, lies somewhere between Ireland and Canada on the fashion barometer, as well as having some unique trends (or indeed anti-trends) of its own. Thankfully it doesn’t have the incessant materialism of Dublin, but I’m stymied by the amount of mullets and the popularity amongst guys for stubbies (extremely short shorts), which I can only surmise must have something to do with the prominence of rugby in the national psyche. Female attire, meanwhile, is currently dominated by what can only be described as “sludge tones”, the darker and drearier the better. In reaction against this, the day after I got to Montreal I bought the most colourful clothes I could find, including a bright pink singlet and a pair of cut-offs in what was described on the tag as “glowstrick green”. Vive la différence!

Lisa McGonigle grew up in North County Dublin, Ireland, before coming to Fernie for one winter. She stayed for the winter, the summer, the following winter, and then a further two winters in Rossland. She is currently living and studying in New Zealand, pining for the Kootenays and exploring what it means when “home” becomes “away” and vice-versa.