Temperatures in the DC area have been pushing past 80 this past week, often with high humidity. Summer in the swamp is beginning, bringing with it a sartorial dilemma, namely, balancing comfort, storage, and style.
I tend to carry quite a bit on me. At the minimum I'll have my wallet, phone, keys, and a pocket knife. Usually I'll also have sunglasses, a handkerchief, a pocket watch, earbud headphones and, when I'm in Virginia, a 380 pistol with a spare clip. When I'm wearing a jacket or coat there's little trouble, as the jacket plus my pants provide enough pockets. The wide variety of jackets available makes it easy to dress up or down in combination with various shirts, pants, sweaters, etc... The problem comes when the climate makes wearing a jacket miserable even when I do what I can with light-weight fabrics. This makes it hard to dress well, because if I leave the jacket at home I lose most of my pockets, but if I keep it on I'm unhappy except in air conditioning. This can be remedied by wearing cargo shorts or pants (and if I'm wearing cargo anything I might as well go all the way to shorts when it's summer), but that results in a more casual look than I often want when going out. However, the jacket-less slacks + dress shirt + tie look doesn't work when every pocket is bulging. Is there anything that will enable me to dress in that gap between cargo shorts and a jacket while also providing plenty of pocket space? The solutions I'm aware of are to carry less stuff or put things in a separate bag; but I don't like doing either. Nor does it help that I hate putting my wallet in a back pocket.
Any suggestions? Or will I have to choose between being overheated but dressy in a jacket or cooler but casual in cargo shorts?
