I find several things about winterwear extremely peculiar. It’s always fun to see how quickly wardrobes change when December-January-February rolls around on campus, and how people adapt, improvise, and overcome the terribly chilly winds that swirl around on campus. Everyone switches to pyjamas – and you see some really creative ones, but more crucially, everyone seems to have their own comfortable winter clothing – the kind of clothing they’d lounge in.
Also, oddly enough, winter clothing just looks a lot more comfortable than clothing that you’d typically wear. Hoodies look extremely snug, for example. Especially the ones with kangaroo style pockets. Burying my hands in them always brings a smile to my face.
I think I’m obsessed with winter wear. Which is weird, because my experience of winter as a child was “oh it is a little cooler than normal today”, by which it would be only 30 degrees Celsius instead of 35 or something. And the sweaters would be out.
A part of this obsession lies in that school sweater I used to own. I feel like everyone, at some point in their lives, has had an itchy, woollen, poorly knitted, tight, v-neck, solid colour sweater. Popular colours include navy blue, bottle green, and bright red. It’s a staple of every school uniform, and is the first thing most people turn to for any kind of warmth.
Mine was the bright red variant. And I detested it as a child. As an adolescent, when I moved to India, I began disliking sweaters even more – they were far too itchy for my liking, and removing it always ended up dislodging my glasses or ruining my hair. A simple solution was to be a little careful while removing the sweater, or to take off my glasses prior to starting that process – but that was never my style.
It’s college that has made me fall in love with sweaters once more. Largely because the cold is unbearable without one, but also because my parents have bought me really cute sweaters. I have one they bought from Morocco which looks really Christmassy, and another one we picked up from a school uniform shop – a navy blue, v-necked sweater.
Wearing it reminds me of my 6-year old self, struggling with a tight sweater, and attempting to loosen it by stretching it to maximum capacity. Now I use the tightness of my sweater as motivation to lose the bit of stomach flab that prevents the blue sweater from being incredibly comfortable. I guess the times are a-changing after all.
Tejas Rao 