Clothing advice for the yankee

Craig,

After your body gets acclumated to the heat, you'll wish you had long sleeve shirts simply for variety purposes. So if I were you I'd bring my fav. long sleeve shirts and some jeans and/or pants. I'm not able to answer your other questions, but someone else may be able to help you. Goodluck!
M

Hey Craig,
Excellent clothing questions...I wished I'd asked them b/4 dragging my "maybe" winter clothes down to the humid tropics to get moldy.

I have several sweaters and long-sleeved items I brought with me. I do use light sweaters in my office due to the AC, but have rarely worn them outside of air-co. I also thought I might be making very frequent visits to NYC, so I brought enough winter stuff to clothe me for an entire year. Big mistake. Not sure where you will be living, but on the Northside anything that doesn;t get used or worn gets moldy. Thnk about that before you pack.

Business suits: all of mine are either a crepe blend, silk or linen. Too hot for anything else. Also, not sure what business you are in, but most professionals on-island dress per business casual. It's Casual Friday all the time. For example, with the exception of one law firm I can think of, law offices permit island casual dress for out of court days.

My hubby buys all of his clothing when we get to Puerto Rico, so I can't assist with stores on-island.

Sandy and John: Did you mean Sandy and Danny, played by Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta, respectively?

Hi Craig,

Long sleeves - needed if you are working in an office or retail store that requires a dress shirt and slacks or for going out to really nice restaurants, graduations, plays, concerts at Reichhold Center, special events like Montessori Night or equivalent, x-mas parties maybe.... cotton long sleeves are best bet. Bring some of those, but nice polo shirts will do well also.

Sweat shirts - the only time I have worn a sweat shirt in the islands was when I was really really sick with the flu and was getting chills/fever.... other wise not necessary, but you might keep one or two if you plan to visit family in cold places so you have something in your carryon for when you get to the airport in the cold place.

Sweaters - not necessary, really no winter cloths are necessary. Unless you will be making frequent trips to cold places = in which case bring a few articles of winter wear to store for trips. Leave all wool cloths behind, you will melt here.

You might want a very light casual sweater, for nights when it rains a lot and gets a bit chilly, usually no less then say 76 degrees but when you get used to 83 every day 76 feels really cold, and also a light casual sweater type thing for going to the movies - often the AC is cold, and as well for AC offices like Onik'a mentioned. Otherwise leave all heavy winter wear at home.

Items to bring with you; Cotton!!!!

Beach Wear - swimming trunks, t-shirts, beach shorts, flip flops, tevas or sandals
Grocery store wear - tshirts and shorts
movie wear - jeans and polo or t-shirt
dinner wear - cotton slacks and polo shirt, or nice shorts and polo or dress pants and long sleeve light cotton shirt
work in office - slacks, polo, light long sleeves
fancy party, gradutation, play - slacks, polo, or perhaps long sleeve shirt and tie, weddings maybe a suit
shoes - dress shoes, sneakers, beach shoes
home - socks, home cloths,

NO WOOL suit. LOL.

Mens clothing and clothing in general is a tough buy in the VI, not too many stores, there are some in town, but no say Gap, Bannana Republic, Sears, Macys.... but you can order things online. You can get sneakers here, socks, undies, t-shirts, shorts, beach wear, beach shoes.... when you get to dress cloths the pickings become slim.

--Islander

If you will be going into a job that requires you to wear men's suits (mainly, working for the government or being a lawyer), DO bring a couple of your lighter WOOL suits.

It is my experience that wool suits built for the South -- relatively light weight, worsted wool -- are not excessively hot, and they stand up to wrinkling a lot better than cotton, linen or some other fabrics. As to where to buy them, I have had good experience with mail order from Land's End.

And there are locations on island, especially on the North Side in high elevations, where it can get (our definition of) cold at night. I have a couple of sweatshirts and get good use of them in the winter months.

How hot am I going to be wearing a wool blended tux at a 5PM wedding on the beach on August 6th?

Joe H

Joe
...Very hot and probably wet...lol

Good Morning...

You guys ROCK! Thanks a bunch, Craig

P.S. Today appears to be the day. :0)