Did I say fur?

Would you consider wearing a fur coat? Have you ever done it?

Fur coats were a founding element in Italian women's closet of my grandmother and my mother's generation. Sure enough, for my eighteenth birthday, the two of them arranged for me to have one as well. Although at the time it felt like a rite of passage to become a "lady", I never wore the coat. Not even after we moved to Canada and its cold winter weather. I took it back to Italy this year, for lack of better storage options.

The thing is that, after uncharacteristically mild fall and early winter temperature (remember what I wrote in this post just last week?), the weather has turned for the worst a few days ago. I live in Canada and I am not afraid of -20 degrees Celsius. I have watched without fear or hibernation my son's skiing class standing on a snowy hilly for an hour in -22 with a windchill. Yet the weather in Milan is really humid, so the cold gets into your bones. Add the fact that apartment buildings have centralized heating and are not only not allowed to raise the temperature above a certain level, but are also forced to shut it down for many hours of the day -- think from 10:30 pm to 6:30 am. We have started having breakfast in bed under a pile of blankets because the house feels like an igloo when we wake up.

Two days ago, feeling half frozen after having worked at home for a few hours, I had to get groceries and I reached for the fur coat. I do not see myself with it at all, and it will certainly go back in the closet once the temperature goes back above 5 degrees, but it was the first time in a few days that I did not feel uncomfortable walking outside. Judging from the pictures taken at Milan's Men Fashion Week, other women in town must have felt the same way!


Photo: Anna dello Russo at Milan's Men Fashion Week, via Fashionologie.