Wear a Coat!

After the Tyne Bridge, the second sight heralding my arrival in the North East is usually an inappropriately dressed female, shivering on the platform with corn beef legs. And in days gone by on nights out in Newcastle I was used to being the only person the Quayside with a coat.

So I almost expect it when I'm up north and unlike the OH, I wasn't shocked when I saw a group of men on Boxing Day evening wearing just t-shirts. But this aversion to coats seems to have spread. During the day, when the ice was still thick on the ground, I saw teenagers wearing just vests! Vests! Temperatures were sub-zero.

And in London, I saw a pair of girls without coats when there was snow on the ground and one of them was wearing denim hotpants! Admittedly she was wearing tights (in the North, the legs would have been bare too), but who decides in snowy weather that hotpants are the ideal wardrobe decision?

Are coats out of fashion and nobody told me? Are they hopelessly unhip amongst the young? I remember reading years ago that Victoria Beckham never wears a coat because she thought they made her look bulky, but then she is ill/crazy/unlikely to be getting the bus anywhere. Surely this aversion can't have spread?

I don't understand it. I love coats. I have loads of them and could happily buy a few more if I didn't already have loads.