Fashion in foggy London Town

Dear Mum,

Winter clutches us in its frost bitten palm – and it is chilly!

Standing on the platform at London Bridge this week, hands thrust in pockets and swamped in the woolliest scarf I own, I couldn’t glimpse the top of The Shard as it was immersed in thick mist. Commuters around me stamped their feet, breathed into their clasped hands and stood with hunched shoulders, clustered like penguins.

London has evidently turned out its winter wardrobe. Gone are maxi dresses, board shorts and flip flops. The winter warmers have arrived.

These cosy accessories are, on the whole, a source of great visual amusement and often a practical disappointment.

Mittens, for example, are one of the most impractical items of hand clothing. No doubt they keep the hands insulated but the only occasion in which they are of practical use is on a country walk, when opening shop doors, handling small change and accepting receipts are not entailed.

Witnessing mittened commuters attempt to pass their tickets through train barriers and, again, accept the ejected ticket is farcical. The excess material means the pincer action is of limited success, causing the frustrated commuter to eventually tear the mitten from their hand using their teeth.

You can now purchase retractable mittens, which allow the finger socks to be folded back and buttoned to reveal more convenient fingerless gloves.

“Genius!” I hear you say. “Oh contraire,” says I.

Remember this innovative design still requires a thumb and finger to fasten and unfasten the button as required. And, once more, the fold of fabric at the fingers of the mittens doesn’t allow one to do this easily.

Some, therefore, simply model the fingerless. This design enables dexterity, effortlessness in general tasks but offers an additional layer to protect the hands from the sharp winter winds.

I find, however, this design provides very little warmth. After all, when one complains of cold hands it is the fingers that are in reality the coldest and thus the source of complaint. Fingerless gloves therefore rather defeat the point of wearing winter garb on the hands.

You have told me before, Mum, “Cold hands? Wear a hat.” I know, however, you do not approve of some of the hat attire that is currently fashionable.

Such as the chullo – the Peruvian style of hat that includes ear flaps with long tasselled plaits, which seems to be inspired by the tambourine-playing teenager in ‘About a Boy.’

Or these woolly bobble hats that boys my age wear. There is, however, clearly a law which states one who wears this hat MUST have tangled and greasy locks and wear the hat on the very back of their skull so that it spills down their neck. (Thinking about it, perhaps the first part of this law is what enables the hat to stay on in the second part...?)

These boys do not, however, take note of your saying because they wear Granny’s knitted head cosies in all seasons, often with board shorts and flip flops.

There is another variety of boy who prefers the bodywarmer to the woolly hat. Or, as he identifies it, ‘the gilet.’ This boy is middle class. (Lucinda, my middle-class alter ego, recently admired a gilet in Zara. She was quickly controlled).

I don’t quite get the point of this half-hearted item of clothing. You might as well wear a jacket or coat, which has the added bonus of attached layers for your arms – most innovative, indeed.

Some girls my age model leg warmers. This always makes me smile.

Similar to the above, rather than wearing pumps and ankle warmers, I think a pair of boots would make more sense. Not only does this mean you avoid looking like you’ll break into the ‘What a feeling’ dance at any given moment, but in just two boots you get everything covered; toes, the forefoot, ankles, legs. The whole shebang.

The most amusing winter warmer is, however, the muff.

It is a very practical accessory; it offers insulation, a hand can be easily removed for ticket purposes, it looks chic...

The reason I laugh is purely for the word. Muff. 

This singular word is hysterical. I can’t help but shake with laughter. As in one seminar at uni, in which giggling Lana and I received many disapproving glances from classmates when our lecturer read a passage of Jane Eyre aloud...

“Gathering my mantle about me, and sheltering my hands in my muff, I did not feel the cold”. (It’s Chapter 12 if you’re in need of a giggle).

For practical, accessible but fashionable purposes I’m sticking to earmuffs. Although a mantle also sounds comforting on an epic scale...