Postal service workers may stop delivering first-class mail on Saturdays, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have style. Soon everyone will be able to dress like a postal worker seven days a week.
The United States Postal Service (USPS) announced that it is launching a clothing and accessory line called “Rain Heat & Snow,” due out in department and specialty stores nationwide in 2014. According to a news release, the name is meant to signify resilience — inspired by the agency’s unofficial motto “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stay these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”
“This agreement will put the Postal Service on the cutting edge of functional fashion,” said Postal Service Corporate Licensing Manager Steven Mills. “The main focus will be to produce Rain Heat & Snow apparel and accessories using technology to create ‘smart apparel’ — also known as wearable electronics.”
The line will be produced by the apparel company Wahconah Group — starting with a line for men and eventually one for women. And don’t think of “functional fashion” as anything less than chic; think of it as an “image-conscious, first class, high end line,” Wahconah Group CEO Isaac Crawford explained to ABC News.
Creating a fashion line may be a way to generate some extra revenue, especially for an agency that reported a $15.9 billion loss last year and is saddled with $20 billion projected annual deficits. But the USPS will have to sell a lot of stamp-patterned rain boots or bubble-wrap-lined jackets to solve its financial problems.
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