“You always have dresses for every event,” she says. “There are some female reporters/meteorologists that have worked out trades with clothing stores that will allow borrow an outfit in trade for a 10- to 15-second ad during the newscast.”Ībrams sees a silver lining to the hefty wardrobe demands. “This month, I’ve spent about $250 on my wardrobe and came home with six dresses,” she says. “I wait until their dresses go on clearance and when it’s marked an extra 30 to 40 percent off the clearance price.” She owns more than 100 dresses, each of which cost an average of $40 to $60, from clearance racks at outlets like Dillard’s, Saks Off 5th, Michael Kors, BCBG, J.Crew, and H&M she finds January to be the cheapest month for dress-buying. “I love French Connection, but they can be pricey,” Sophia says. Very few on-air meteorologists get wardrobe budgets, which can make for a substantial financial burden if they don’t shop wisely. (And yet the winter-unfriendly sheath dress remains queen on TV.)
One of Abrams’ recent Instagram posts shows her and two other women wearing winter jackets and clutching a heating lamp during a commercial break while their male colleague claims sweaty armpits.
Like many office buildings, the Weather Channel studio is colder for Abrams and the other women in dresses than it is for the men in suits. How many styles of red dresses are there anyway?”įreezing temperatures are a problem in the studio, too. Patterns are tough with the lights and camera.
Too baggy will make you look frumpy. Black every day is boring. Too tight will make you look like ready for the dance club. “Sometimes what to wear is biggest stress of my job,” the Weather Channel’s Jen Carfagno told me over email. Their jobs require clothes that are comfortable enough to move around in (the sweeping arms of a cold front! the quick steps of an incoming hurricane!), fancy enough for a TV broadcast, and cheap enough to buy more than one. Meteorologists, it turns out, are hungry for clothing recommendations. The low price point wide variety of bright colors stretchy fabric and flattering, structured cut made it a shoo-in for meteorologists who need to build a high-volume wardrobe without, in most cases, an employer-provided clothing budget. The dress costs around $23 on Amazon and $61 straight from the vendor, Homeyee, a China-based e-commerce site whose website is full of “lorem ipsum” placeholders and mistranslations.