At risk of alienating half the population, I love winter. Not because I enjoy leaving the house at 6am to walk my golden retriever George in air so cold it laughs in the face of even my best puffer, nor because I relish the annual return of my Vitamin D supplements and low-grade melancholy. I love winter for one far more compelling reason: dressing. More specifically, outerwear.
Winter style has always struck me as infinitely more elegant and forgiving than summer dressing. It asks less of you while often delivering more - a great coat can do the work of an entire outfit, creating the impression of taste and intention with very little effort underneath. Lazy dresser’s fashion maths.
Transparency is important here: I am, by nature, said lazy dresser. I feel most like myself in a T-shirt and jeans. Unfortunately for me, I do not look like Margot Robbie slipping through Sydney Airport in some impossibly understated variation of that formula. Not through lack of trying, but through the simple fact that life distributes aesthetics unevenly.
Much of my twenties were spent believing accessories would solve this. I lusted after handbags with near-religious fervour, convinced the right bag might distract from the deeply ordinary outfit attached to it. Sometimes it worked. In my thirties, I’ve found a more reliable shortcut: outerwear. A great coat thrown over denim and suddenly you’re a woman with places to be.
My taste runs from the dependable classics to the occasional flamboyant outlier, because winter seems to permit a little extra drama.
Summer dressing often feels exposed in every sense of the word. Winter allows for mystery, proportion, layering, movement. It lets you build a silhouette rather than simply reveal one. It is generous to the self-conscious, and the creatively underprepared — which, on most mornings, is exactly who I am.
My current favourites are linked below. Welcome to the lazy dressing club.
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