Jackets are great. Jackets keep us warm; they protect us against the endless throes of winter, and they often come with pockets that we can actually keep things in. Which is nice. Of course, some do more of one and less of the other. And some do all of one and none of the other. With fashion a supremely important consideration to many of us these days, the fact of the matter is, everybody wants to look their best. Whether you’re a cutting edge fashion aficionado, utilizing the latest trends and discussing them with all your fashion friends on your fashion Blackberry; or whether your concentration lies with other things, like finding excuses to get up in the morning and not tripping over your own feet; we all want to look good.
So then, as the colder months set in, and it’s time to find a suitable piece of clothing that won’t be shredded to bits the second a light breeze kicks up, which element do you consider the most important?
Naturally, this will largely come down to the type of person you are, but to some, fashion is more important than the basic necessities we require to stay alive, seemingly. Case in point, take any average, below-freezing winter Saturday night out in the pubs and clubs, and see how many girls appear to be defying the cold-weather limits of the human body. Lots. So how do we decide what to wear in the winter?
It’s a conundrum once plagued by the fact that warm clothing didn’t look aesthetically pleasing, however nowadays, you’re almost consumed by impossible choices. Still, even with the large range of great looking, fashionable winter clothing, many still prefer the slimmed down, body clutching look of warmer-weather wear, and of course, that doesn’t bode too well when it comes to, well, anything other than glorious sunshine.
There are many benefits to each option, in reality, and of course, in an ideal world, every garment we wore would highlight our best features, disguise the worst and keep us cosy warm whenever the weather called for it. Unfortunately, until Apple move into fashion or we really start getting serious on this global warming front, we may just have to wear appropriate clothing.
Opportunely, one resolutely champion choice is wax, and moreover, quilted jackets. With both a staple of country wear from years gone by, their roots lie in ubiquitous practicality, providing a jacket for farmers that could repel the intensely bitter ravages of 4am starts, out in the field where the only thing between them and an icy death is the clothes in which they stand. With rough and ready visual qualities, pockets large in both size and quantity, and the ability to stave off the effects of all nasty weather conditions, there’s no wonder they’ve been used so frequently for so long.
Of course, on the flip side, these types of jacket are extraordinarily weighty in the fashion world. Whilst wax jackets are heavy and cumbersome (though, it has to be said, equally fashionable) the range of options for the quilted alternative is vast, offering some modern looking shapes and styles that accentuate all the right proportions and are small and tidy enough to be manoeuvrable, whilst still providing protection from the weather.
So really, the question comes down to, what exactly do you want from your jacket? If the answer is practicality, whilst remaining at the forefront of the fashion conscious factions then surely a wax jacket is the solution. If you’re more concerned with keeping that trim outline, and the ability to move your arms flamboyantly is important, whilst ensuring you’re kept warm and dry, then quilted jackets are the answer!
Problem solved. Happy shopping this winter everybody!
