Winters in Pittsburgh can be beautiful, producing idyllic scenes of snowball fights, sledding down the city’s many hills, and snow falling as skaters circle the rink at PPG Place. However, in a city with as much air pollution and traffic as Pittsburgh, that crisp white powder usually turns to grey slush in a matter of days. Then comes the mud, the grime-covered vehicles (ain’t nobody worrying about car washes when it’s 5 degrees outside), and general wet sloppiness.
In times like these, I remember a staple of my youth — the play coat. A play coat is usually a piece of kids’ outerwear meant to get dirty, a beat-up garment dug out from the back of the closet when outdoor activities call. This was essential for me, a farm kid with a mom who didn’t want her daughter going to school in a coat that smelled like barn stink.
While the average Pittsburgher may not be working around animal excrement and greasy farm equipment, they are dealing with the aforementioned dirtiness of urban living. Why risk accidentally scraping up against your car and getting filth on your nice camel coat while running a simple errand or heading to the gym? Why pay dry cleaning bills to get the cigarette smoke and food fryer smell out of your expensive parka after hanging out at a Pittsburgh dive? (Pittsburgh City Paper Audience Engagement Specialist Stacy Rounds offered a name for the latter: the clubbing coat, aka the coat you’re willing to leave behind during a debaucherous night out.)
What qualifies as a play coat varies. In the fourth grade, I wore a puffer covered in white paint specks from when an errant spray can caused a minor explosion in my redneck family’s garbage burner barrel. In my 20s, I had a slightly too-small blue corduroy peacoat that saw me through years of cold nights out.
My current play coat — worn mainly to the gym because I don’t want my goose-down parka to smell like hot ham water — is a light purple number I got for $20 at Costco. Is it the warmest coat? No. Do I care if it gets ruined or starts smelling like a pair of Fabletics leggings way past their prime? Absolutely not.
In all fairness, not everyone has the means to own more than one coat, never mind one that functions as a throwaway. In an ideal world, we would all have a play coat to wear while doing yard work, helping a friend move, or visiting one of Pittsburgh’s remaining smoker-friendly bars.
Those sitting on an unused coat, consider rotating it back into your wardrobe (or donating it, so that someone else can have an extra). Play coats are not just for kids, and in Pittsburgh, could save you a lot of headaches and stain-treating. Staying warm is hard enough, no one should have to do it in a “good coat” covered in environmental filth.
This article appears in Jan 29 – Feb 4, 2025.
