Is there any fabric more well-loved than flannel? At Vela Magazine, Sonya Huber discusses the significance wearing flannel had to her teenage self in the 1980s Midwest:
Flannel hid the shape of a woman, yet it revealed as we pushed our breasts against its grid; it protected us from scrutiny. Inside flannel’s soft tent, I could pause and breathe. Days in flannel were the days in which my body would not be sized up nor my energy drained in appeasing responses to flirting and banter. Flannel did not save me, but it stayed with me as a reminder: claiming my own space was possible.
