Freezing for Fashion

Let me start with this: I get it, when it's below freezing you need to find some way to shield yourself when you're outside from this horrific season known as winter. If you're part of the astronaut boot or bubble wrap club I get it, even I have been in public in fleece leggings (I just made sure I didn't run into anyone I knew while doing it).

Look even though my mom was pregnant moving from New York to California with me, I didn't pick up some resilience to cold temperature in my early months in the womb. No I was born and raised in the land of sunshine where the only coat I owned was a small black peacoat worn annually around the holidays just to pretend there was potential that LA could ever get a White Christmas.

So there were my east coaster parents warning me about what it would really be like to live in the cold. It's not all snowflakes and fun like a J.Crew catalog, it's a matter of survival: you versus the polar vortex trying to walk three blocks without slipping on ice and splitting your beautiful new blue Pandaj & Nidhi dress in half on the way to an interview. Yes my friends that happened, and I'm not sure if I should be crying more about ruining an expensive brand new dress or my body being covered in black and blue camo print of bruises.

Here's why fashion and the cold don't mix. The biggest problem isn't that it takes about 3-7 minutes (depending on how fast you are) to put on and take off all your layers. Or that even though you've covered every inch of your body you've got a Rudolph nose and that Pantone of red (Chinese Red of course...IP joke) doesn't go with anything. Or that you're forced to wear tights as if they're just an extra layer of dermis (for your information they make an awesome extra layer of insulation under pants). No, no, no, the biggest problem of them all is the shoes, even bigger problem when it snows.

Here's the thing I refuse to buy "those snow boots." Sorel or LL Bean invades the streets after a snow day, and to be honest everyone looks like they're heading to NASA to blast off into space. Then you look up and realize this guy has his trousers tucked into them, and he's probably on his way to The Hill to do something much more important than care to think about what some 20 something fashion aficionado has to say. I digress, whatever you choose to wear to get yourself from home to the office is one thing, then there's the changing into the shoes that's another. I feel like a magician with many tricks hidden in my hat, but more like the pains of having to carry what seems like an alternative wardrobe in my tote. I've become a bag lady if you will.

Let's move onto the coat culture. I spend my days on the metro analyzing coats. Sometimes you'll spot a really fantastic fur or an awesome color that really makes the outfit, but for the most part they're the same uniform black wool things or bubble wrap. Yes bubble wrap or those down parkas that don't distinguish a man from a woman and make a swish noise with every step you take. Yes, during my first winter here my North Face bubble wrap was my best friend. I felt like I was in a constant sleeping bag, and when you're living off little to no sleep that's the best feeling in the world. Year two in the cold, it's reserved for going to yoga exclusively. I began to realize that I'd rather freeze for fashion. My extensive growing collection of beautiful coats all deserve equal attention even if it means possible frost bite in the process. Finally a note on the coats, is it so vain of me to want to walk around with my coat unzipped or unbuttoned just so my well thought out and glamorous outfit underneath gets some spotlight. Is it really fair to let some bubble wrap represent your OOTD?