The months between December and March can be pretty brutal and tear-inducing, but there are so many sartorial reasons to love the winter season. Sure, the majority of us have to suit up like we're about to head out to Siberia when it comes to our morning commute, or feel like blown-up marshmallows compared to our summer wardrobe selves. But one thing we can enjoy about the harsh chill is that it calls for an extremely cozy and easy style.
If you have messy hair, it can be stuffed into a hat and ignored for the rest of the day. If you don't feel like putting much thought into an outfit (seasonal depression can do that to ya) you can just hide in the blessed cover of winter-wear all day long. Down-comforter layers become in vogue, cardigans that look like they could double as sleeping bags stylish, and coats that appear to have eaten your whole family are a staple.
Even if the brutal cold of winter isn't your thing, you can hopefully still appreciate the amazingness that is winter fashion. Below are 11 fashion reasons to love the winter season. Because if the peppermint mochas won't get you, the impossible-to-destroy tights will.
1. You Can Hide Crap Hair Behind A Beanie
When you wake up during the wintertime and your bangs are doing that cowlick thing or your hair is doing the chia pet poof thing or you run out of dry shampoo and you're thus out of options because showering is just not on the list of to-do's today, you just grab the beanie. And all is solved. During the summer, you'd have to stand there and make offerings to the good-hair-day gods to give you a break, but during the winter you just hide your crap hair and get on with your life. It's amazing.
2. Wearing The Marshmallow Equivalents Of Socks Is Actually Stylish
There's nothing like getting to put on a thick pair of fluffy socks decorated in all manners of stripes, polka dots, and snowflakes and being considered stylish. It's like wearing a Snuggie for your feet, but J.Crew approves.
3. You Can Get Away Without A Bra For A Couple Of Months
If you really want to, you can leave the confining prisons of pretty, lacy bras behind because sweaters are thick and you won't scandalize anyone with your nipples. This means you can be in Saturday-morning mode all week long, and no one will be the wiser.
4. You Can Wear That Eeyore Sweater From Middle School And No One Will Ever Know
Why is it that the ugliest sweater you own is always the comfiest? And why is it that when you put it on, you don't have the will to take it off until laundry day next month?
When you're out and about, this could prove to be fashion suicide. But seeing how it's winter and you take off your coat maybe 10 percent of the time, no one needs to be the wiser. You can have a Cara Delevingne-esque coat on top of your Star Wars sweater with the permanent mustard stain, and look like a complete street style star.
5. Leggings Become Life Blood
Leggings with long sweaters, leggings with cropped sweaters (because why not?), leggings underneath dresses, leggings underneath jeans: The super cozy item has made its way from being semi-questionable in the fall to an absolute staple in the winter. Just try to separate a person from their leggings. Dangerous stuff.
6. Wearing Repeat Outfits Barely Ever Gets Noticed
Winter style more or less has a tried and true equation to it, unless you really want to dabble and go on your own tangent. But because most of us usually land on a booties, jeans, and super cute knit combo on most chilly mornings, it's hella easy to get away with repeat outfits... for like five days in a row. If you happen to come into work with the same dark sweater on over and over, everyone's just going to assume you really like navy and have a parade of knits in a similar style. This is especially handy during groggy and chilly winter mornings when you couldn't care less what you're putting on.
7. The Olsen Bag Lady Look Is Stylish Now
Sure, when you try to dress in your bag lady clothes during the spring, your friends try to give you fashion advice consisting of, "Just donate your clothes to charity." But when the first polar vortex hits, everyone will want to know where you got your duvet-sized cardigan. Just call yourself the lost Olsen sibling.
8. You Have An Excuse To Buy An Obscene Amount Of Scarves
During the summer, your scarf habit is likely seen as hoarder-esque, but during the winter it's just common survival skills. Owning about 24 different blanket scarves is a must.
9. It's Warm Enough For Sweater Tights
As in, the tights without annoying control tops and that are so thick they're nearly impossible to rip. Sure, some of us have a certain knack for destroying hosiery, even if it's practically bullet-proof. But wooly tights are far less likely to cause you woe.
10. Laundry Days Are At A Minimum
During the summer, you're probably the human equivalent of a melting ice cream cone, so your dresses and tees are constantly going through the washing machine ringer. But since it's cold enough now for frost to accumulate on your eyebrows, that problem no longer exists. Plus, who actually knows how to wash sweaters without destroying them? During this time, many of us opt to keep wearing them over and over until it's socially unacceptable to do so, leaving that laundry basket blessedly empty!
11. You Get To Try Your Hand At Layering
Layering is so much fun. You get to combine blouses with dresses with cardigans, mix and match patterns and colors, textures and prints, and make amazing new outfits out of clothes you were previously bored with. Sometimes you might end up looking a mess; sometimes you might end up looking like something off the pages of Vogue. But every time you get a little adventurous with your outfits, it'll feel good.
At the end of the day, creativity and expression usually feel good. Winter let's you play, and that's pretty cool.
Want more wintry tips? Check out the video below, and be sure to subscribe to Bustle’s YouTube page for more hacks and tricks!
Images: Marlen Komar (5)
