SAN FRANCISCO — As record high temperatures hit the rest of California, this city seemed to exist in a parallel weather — and wardrobe — universe.
Retailers here stock summer clothes, but it’s common to see winter pashmina silk-and-cashmere-blend shawls for sale. Layering is a summer necessity, not just a fashion craze.
San Francisco, perched at the end of a peninsula, can be downright chilly this time of year. The daytime highs this week are forecast mostly in the mid- to upper-60s, dipping into the mid-50s at night.
The city is cloaked in fog almost daily from June through August; it starts rolling in about 3 p.m. as hot air inland rises and expands, pulling in the offshore mist generated by cool ocean currents. The fog moves east from the Pacific Ocean, sticking around until morning. By early evening, the fog’s cottony billows reach downtown, where chronically underdressed tourists buy $15 polar fleece jackets from vendors.
“It’s not that cold,” Tiffani Wilt, women’s fashion director for Macy’s West, based here, said with the stoicism of a San Franciscan. “It’s just chilly. You have to be prepared.”
Wilt said the weather has spurred early sales of this fall’s fashion of leggings under skirts, but San Franciscans aren’t overdoing them. “Customers still want to dress for the season, and it’s not always chilly.”
Tanya Zilinskas, owner of Maneater Threads, a fashion Web site located here, takes a practical approach.
“If you cover your extremities, you can still wear skimpy outfits,” she said. “The other night I wore a Rami Kashou sleeveless top over jeans and I brought a light wool cropped jacket for when I got cold.”
Still, on occasion, a San Franciscan will completely forsake summer fashion by wearing a thick winter muffler, as well as a ski cap. Last week, flight attendant Valentina Wallace was walking near Golden Gate Park in a wool cable turtleneck sweater over a T-shirt, jeans and a billed cap, carrying a quilted jacket. “I feel ridiculous, but I feel the cold,” Wallace said.
“People accessorize with all kinds of scarves,” said Priya Sarawati, co-designer and partner at San Francisco’s Saffron Rare Threads.
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At city boutiques carrying the label, Saffron’s jackets in stretch cotton sateen for $250, with matching $176 pants, have sold out, Sarawati said. She was speaking from Saffron’s boutique and showroom near Market Street, where a mini heat wave in one of the eccentric micro-climates created by the city’s famous hills temporarily pushed daytime temperatures to more than 80 degrees.
“Right now, I have on one of our cotton poplin skirts and a tank top,” said Sarawati, who was prepared with a jacket for “when the wind picks up.”
At some points inland, which generally swelter during summer, the fog may have a cooling effect. But it has been a struggle this season as temperatures hit more than 100 degrees during the last two weeks in Palo Alto and the rest of Silicon Valley south of San Francisco; Berkeley and Oakland to the east across San Francisco Bay, and Marin, Sonoma and Napa counties to the north, across the Golden Gate Bridge.
To stay cool, customers at Platform 626, a boutique in Burlingame, just south of San Francisco, were snapping up $28 tank tops in white, brown and cream from owner Jacqueline Jimenez’s line, Power of Words. The shirts have sayings like “Make Love Not War,” which Jimenez said women are pairing with breezy knee-length skirts and open-toe wedge sandals.
Also selling well at Platform 626 were $150 dresses incorporating pieces of old T-shirts by Oakland designer Nicacelly, as well as “the wrapper,” her $115 sleeveless top with an obi sash. Asymmetric, form-fitting and lightweight jersey knit dresses with prints and cutouts for $180 from London-based Religion are also popular at Platform 626.
Marty Murphy, owner of M Clothing in Corte Madera in Marin County and Healdsburg in Napa County, has been wearing Rachel Pally dresses and separates in Tencel fabric.
Murphy said a customer who commutes to San Francisco may wear dress trousers in a superfine stretchy twill fabric, like those by Tom K. Nguyen that she carries for $150 and calls “a new staple.” The pants can be paired with a Trina Turk sleeveless top with an easy fit, or a blouse with kimono-like sleeves, for $225.
On some days, temperatures inland cooled to 80 to 90 degrees, while San Francisco was at about 60 degrees.
It’s the type of weather that can be vexing to Kate Logan, owner of Ooma, a boutique in San Francisco’s North Beach. Logan commutes on a scooter to her store a couple of miles away in the neighborhood of Cole Valley, a different city climate zone.
“Every morning, it’s pretty foggy where I live,” she said. “I have to check the weather to see if it’s really going to be cold all day.”
Still, Logan said that among her hot sellers are $75 T-shirt dresses, gathered at the waist, by Saint Grace, a Los Angeles brand, in teal, spice orange and hot pink. “It’s very kicky and cute,” she said. “People are addicted to it.”
She also stocks $60 pashmina scarves year-round, which work well during chilly, rainy northern California winters. “It may seem passé to people, but…they are easy to tuck in a tote bag and people want something light and feminine.”