The Oneshirt story starts in several places, but one of them is definitely the knitting studio at the Heriot Watt School of Textiles in Galashiels, Scotland. I was in Scotland with a group of twelve students from my fashion program in Texas. We had two weeks with the fabulous instructors and technicians at the International School to learn about weaving, knitting and screen printing.
Just before we left for the trip, I had a good talk with my doctor about the swelling in my ankles, knees and elbows. We still didn’t have a handle on the cause at that point, it turns out that hypermobile type connective tissue disorders like Ehlers-Danllos can result in lymphedema or venous insufficiency in some folks. But, the doctor’s advice was to wear good compression stockings, especially when traveling. A close family member, who also struggles with connective tissue issues told me he was getting great benefits from wearing graduated compression tights designed for Olympic athletes. The best brands, such as 2XU, are expensive, but I bought a pair and gosh, he was right, combined with compression socks, the swelling in the lump centers behind my knees reduced and the pain was gone. I packed my new underlayer with the appropriate clothes for a traveling professor, wrinkle free jackets with matching skirts and pants.
While Texas is often hot, international flights are cold and even in summer, Scotland surely wouldn’t be that warm, right? Ha! Our first day in the textile studios, I discovered that layering tights under even loose linen pants was just too warm for an old building without air conditioning on a summer day. The black and green striped tights might look great with running shoes and a t-shirt, they didn’t look right under a suit skirt. But when I took them off, a full day standing in front of a knitting machine left me with very sore and swollen legs. I noticed that the Scottish professors were all wearing long tunics with leggings and even though this wasn’t considered professional dress for teachers back in Texas, I decided to give it a try.
The Next shop in town had a few suitable long shirts and the next day I put back on the athletic compression tights under a blue striped tunic and headed to class. The reduction in layers was a vast improvement. I walked into our first class of the day and went over to the several American students in the room to check in. They noticed my new look and I asked them “ Does it look like I am not wearing any pants?”. The room got very quiet and I saw some strange looks from Scottish students. The cheerful teacher started laughing and pulled me aside, “I live in Pennsylvania, so I understand what you said but, in Scotland, what you call panties we call pants!”. OMG!
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