Winter Thoughts

The winter is here in it’s full power. I’ve never experienced a cold winter like this. In Israel we do not wear coats. If we are cold we put a jumper on. getting used to the million layers was very new to me. I bought my first coat 5 years ago when I moved to London.

Winter - The coldest season of the year, after autumn and before spring.

The oxford dictionary defines winter very clinically and a foreigner like me may mistakably think that all you need in the winter is a cool and warm coat.

Other then the need for the perfect coat, the winter brings many other needs which are much harder to obtain. As the cold reaches under my duvet the longing for my past crawling into my veins. The comforting embrace of my mom and endless laughter with my family. The distance makes the winter here even colder. The coldest the winter – the biggest coat I need.

Maybe that’s a good explanation for the oversized coats trend that we see lately. It seems like I’m not the only one that try to substitute human warmth with fashion.

My sweet husband knows me well and took me to Dover street market to feed my addiction with synthetic love and bought me a Junya Watanabe coat.

I like to wear quirky cloths and dress up but I don’t like to get out of the house as much. It was a good excuse to get out of the house in the freezing weather.

So I put on my gothic black coat on top of a black net 50’s crinoline, my warm glittery green socks and flat patent black shoes and went out to get my new coat.

In the winter it doesn’t really matters what top you put on, you can wear your pyjamas as long as you have a cool coat on top and some punk kinky accessories. As for me, it defiantly my glittery socks and my mescaline patent dress shoes…

We took the Jubilee line to green park and on the way we grabbed the paper from the man near the station.

I was very happy to see a feature on winter fashion and flipped the pages quickly straight to that one. I was very disappointed to see that the feature wasn’t about fashion at all. it showed few celebrities wearing coats, and most disappointing mainly fur coats. There is nothing cool about fur coats. It’s just few murdered harmless cute little animals on a famous lady. There is nothing fashionable about that. You can achieve glamorous expensive look without killing beautiful animals. It’s even more cynical to wear fur coat on Xmas and New Years eve as the holidays suppose to reflect good deeds and hope for a better future.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the big flamboyant look but the days of killing an animal instead of being creative are long gone.

I think that designers should take part in this activity against fur in fashion and support the existing campaign against cruelty towards animals. Stella Mccartney shouldn’t stand alone.

We got home with a big coat inspired by the big comforting duvet. I wonder weather the winter makes Junya also romantic and melancholic that all he wants to do is crawl into his duvet and be a kid again.

The melancholic romance is not always negative, I thought. There is a bitter sweet joy which takes place. I find the English winter quite inspiring. The melancholy sometimes can bring the best ideas, like the brilliant “Ophelia” by Millias. The Pre Raphaelites probably suffered from a winter depression to achieve this perfection. There is nothing like a tormented beauty.

The image of a beautiful woman with a smudged makeup from the rain, dirty soaked dress and huge overcoat has always inspired me. With that thought I’ve started to sketch.

Thanks to my good friend Shirley Sivan who always has a good tune for every occasion!