Meteorologist tired of Idaho viewers focusing on clothes wears same dress for 10 days
Idaho meteorologist Bri Eggers used to get questions about why she would never wear the same thing twice.
The forecaster at Boise’s KTVB had been renting her work wardrobe for seven years to have something different to wear every day — until a viewer told the station her clothing was so unattractive it was distracting, the TV station reported.
“The apparel that Bri wears is very unattractive,” a viewer said to KTVB. “I’m so taken back by her apparel that I don’t even remember what it is that she’s trying to tell us.”
Eggers said she was baffled by the viewer’s comment. So she decided to take fashion out of her job, she said on TikTok.
“Maybe the fashion part of the job is distracting from my job itself,” Eggers said on KTVB. “Honestly, comments about my wardrobe distract me as well and I just wanted to see what would happen if I put all of the focus on the forecast.”
She decided to buy a $17 black dress and wear it every day on air. Yes, she washed it between wearing it, but she went 10 days before being asked to wear something else, according to KTVB.
“It was a bit of personal empowerment,” Eggers said on TikTok. “For 10 days I didn’t get any criticisms about my fashion choices, my body type or how my hair was done.”
Eggers said on KTVB that the message she’s trying to give as a meteorologist is what’s important, not what she wears.
There’s a “time and a place for a fashion show,” Eggers said, and her forecast isn’t it.
She told McClatchy News that the job of a meteorologist has evolved as the climate changes.
Weather in many places has become more extreme, and meteorologists are often the first line of communication on how that could impact someone’s daily life, The New York Times reported.
“In a changing climate, our jobs as meteorologists have become so much more important,” Eggers told McClatchy News in an email. “It’s more important than ever before to be a ‘station scientist’ and a great communicator. However, it’s still such a challenge to break the ‘cute weather-girl’ stigma.”
This story was originally published February 2, 2022 at 2:12 PM with the headline "Meteorologist tired of Idaho viewers focusing on clothes wears same dress for 10 days."