Net-a-Porter founder Natalie Massenet in a Shrimps coat.
Photograph: Rex Features
Janice, London
Hating Christmas? I’m not sure if that is normal, really. Personally, I love Christmas and I’m a New York Jew and everyone knows New York Jews are the Jewiest of Jews. But fashion making you look forward to a new season? I’d describe that as simply part of the human condition. People make fun of fashion and the way the shops start stocking winter coats in August. But what these naysayers don’t understand is that ACTUALLY fashion people aren’t doing this because they’re capricious, venal or contrary – they do it because they CARE.
For example, let’s take my favourite subject: me. I love the English summers – the long days, the gorgeous parks, the hot but not too “Oh my God, I think I’m actually in hell” hot temperatures. English summers are, to my mind, one of the main advantages England has over America.
But if English summers are heavenly, then English winters are a mangy, frostbitten, vengeful dog from hell. Everything is miserable and grey, and the temperature is set to Pointless Cold (which is officially too cold to go for walks, but not cold enough for snow) for eight months, all day, every day. If I must be cold, which I’d always rather not be, then I want something in return for my pain: snow, ideally, and bright blue skies. I want the kind of winter drama with which I grew up in the States, when you’d find fresh two-foot tall snowdrifts on the pavement every morning and cherry-cheeked children in deluxe sleighs scooting down Fifth Avenue (sentimentality may have embellished my memories here). In England, all I’m guaranteed to find in the winter is a load of old Kleenex in my coat pocket.
In fact, my English winter loathing reached such a nadir recently that I began to think maybe the only solution was for me to move back to the States for winters – southern California, ideally, where I wouldn’t have to deal with any cold at all. As chance would have it, I had to go to Los Angeles two weeks ago for work and went with half a mind thinking I should seriously look at it as a place to live. So I did. And you know what? It was great. Venice Beach! Who wouldn’t want to live there? All those kindly stoned old people, the organic cafes run by whacked-out old hippies called Rainbow and the actual basketball court where they filmed the 90s classic White Men Can’t Jump. They should change the name from Venice Beach to Hadley’s Heaven. So I returned to London, pretty much good to go. Until everything changed – and when I say “everything changed”, I mean: “I bought a coat.”
This coat is ridiculous. It is also, rather unfortunately, currently being touted in the fashion magazines, which means it will be deemed out of style by the time this column is published. But I don’t care. It is by a London label called Shrimps and it is a 1960s cut, which is my favourite cut for a coat, and is dark blue fake fur with white stripes along the bottom, like a Breton top, but furrier.
Like I said, it’s ridiculous. When I wear it I look like I killed Cookie Monster. And, dammit, I love it. It is the cosiest thing I have ever worn, after my duvet, and I try not to wear my duvet out of the house. Whenever I put it on, I sink into its delicious furry cosiness with a sound not unlike the sound Homer Simpson makes when he looks at doughnuts. I don’t care if my coat is deemed passé by October: like Ugg boots, it is far too delicious to ever really be out of style, and wearing it makes me feel simultaneously glamorous (dark blue fake fur, which is unexpectedly fabulous) and warm (the aforementioned delicious furry cosiness). I love this coat so much I wore it over the weekend when it was probably about 70F and everyone else on the high street was in T-shirts and shorts and there I was, looking like a 1970s pimp.
So now I couldn’t be more excited about winter. Venice Beach? Pah! Who needs all that beach baloney? Bring on the English grey skies and pointlessly cold mornings so I can wear my coat and make everyone jealous of how fabulously furry and cosy I am. And this, you see, is one of the main joys of fashion: it gives us things to anticipate. As children, it is the prospect of school holidays, birthdays and Christmas that keep us excitedly propelling forward. What is there when you’re an adult? Not bloody much, to be honest. You need to find your own prospects on the horizon, and one of those, for me, is fashion.
So just as I’m thinking of packing up and obeying the Pet Shop Boys and going west, I find an amazing winter coat that keeps me London-bound. And when we’re in the most sluggish troughs of winter and the thought of showing any skin is frankly laughable because I’ve spent the past eight months injecting carbohydrates directly into my cellulite, I’ll spot a lovely one-piece swimsuit and start getting excited. Call me shallow (I have no rebuttal to that, so go ahead, call me shallow), but at least I’m happy about the winter coming, and how many of you can say that? Mmm, delicious furry cosiness.
Post your questions to Hadley Freeman, Ask Hadley, The Guardian, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Email
ask.hadley@theguardian.com.
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