I was getting dressed after work last Tuesday in the Nordstrom fitting room trying on, what I can only assume was the fifteenth winter coat of the season when I had the same breakdown I had three years ago. Complete with the same tears of defeat and “why is this math so impossible?” ranting under my breath, I texted my girlfriends the same thing I did that painful November day back in 2018. “Does a coat exist that will keep me warm without making me look pregnant?? ?” Predictably, my phone blew up immediately. Sheryl from grad school: “Still looking.” Brittany, my college roommate turned management consultant: “ugh, it’s my white whale.” Even Renee who works at Vogue sent crying laughing emojis and “girl,,,, we ALL know.” If you work in finance in Boston you know exactly what I’m talking about.
You need coats that fit into your work wardrobe- aka it can’t just be a cute jacket you throw over your sweater when you’re running errands on the weekend. You need something to wear when you have to walk six blocks from the T to your office in twenty degree wind that feels determined to kill you. But you can’t show up to your office or client meetings throwing on some giant snow buffalo coat like you’re hiking up Kilimanjaro.
It needs to be streamlined and professional, but also actually keep you warm. It’s such a weird balance that I feel like only we, professional women in cold weather cities, understand.
My coworker spends winter squeezing into his North Face fleece jacket and calls it good.
God bless menswear for solving that issue for them so quickly and easily. I’ve been thinking about this more lately because this is the start of year four in my career and I still haven’t cracked the code. I have an entire graveyard of coats in my closet that I’ve tried and failed with.
Coat purchasing booby traps where I thought “maybe this time! This will be IT.” Let me walk you through a few of my favorite. I still have the wind-cheating Mackage coat I bought myself my first year because I refused to admit it was a waste of money.
It’s so thin that it barely keeps out wind- honestly I’m surprised it works as a coat at all. You can’t even see it on me in pictures. Looks great.
Posts beautifully on LinkedIn. Will keep me about as warm as a sweater. I keep it hung up in my closet mocking me with its low price point and laughable lack of warmth.
Then there was the Canada Goose stage. My logic? If it’s good enough for scientists studying penguins in Antarctica, it’ll work for Boston.
Spoiler alert- it does NOT work for your daily commute in to the financial district when you’ve got meetings with “conservative” clients all day. Nothing says “take me seriously during this M&A deal” like looking like you got lost on your way to a ski trip in Vail. And currently I’m working an inventory that includes this cute Theory wool coat that checks all the boxes.
It’s slim, it’s professional, it works with dresses and skirts and everything in between. But even with layering two sweaters underneath I’m FREEZING walking to work. By the time I get to the office I have to hover over the heating vents to warm up.
It’s embarrassing. Don’t get me wrong I know my options are nowhere near as strenuous as other women’s. This is not to say that all women have this issue- my white colleagues can get away with enormous winter parkas without the entire shebang screaming “I’m not someone you should take financial advice from.” But I have noticed that other women of color seem to have this same struggle.
Where are the coats that check all our boxes? Last winter I found this cute coat from Aritzia called the Super Puff. It’s marketed as this in-between space of warm puffy coats but fits more slimly than most.
Goodreviews from other professional women. Seemed like it’d be great. Yeah no.
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About as warm as my Mackage but nowhere near as slim. If I wore that to work I’d basically look like a brick house. Maybe appropriate? but 100% not warm.
I’ve actually been keeping a list of different coats that other women recommend. Like I’ll search online and send it to my girlfriends with “Has anyone tried this and can vouch it stays warm! ?” Half of my Harvard Business school alumni chat group is about coat recommendations these days. We love it so much we analyze these coats like they’re potential stock picks.
It needs to be warm enough for REAL cold weather. It can’t just work for that “cool fall day” kind of weather. It has to look intentional OVER A DRESS.
Has to have enough room that you don’t feel imprisoned by the coat itself. It can’t add so many layers that you look ridiculous. And holy shit does it seem like this problem has gotten WORSE as workplace dress codes have relaxed.
I remember when people wore suits to work every day my dads coworkers did, coats were simple- you bought a wool coat that would work over your suit and you were out. Buy one, return one kind of thing. But no, now that I can wear more than pants and a jacket to work I need a coat that matches my whole repertoire.
And don’t get me started on how this magical coat needs to have a comeback season. Coats always seem to start too early and end too late around here. It’s either still chilly enough in November that your cute wool coat feels ridiculous or warm enough in March that you NEED that coat and it’s nowhere to be found.
Ugh. This season I’ve been trying something I’m calling my “coat wardrobe.” Taking cues from how I built out my whole work wardrobe, I’ve decided to buy multiples that will serve different needs. I have my “commissuin-friendly-but-not-really warm” coat and my “ SO WARM but incredibly ridiculos bulky” coat.
What I’m missing is that somewhere in between coat I can wear to anything vaguely professional. It’s not the most elegant of solutions- I definitely don’t have enough room in my NYC apartment for multiple coats. I also find myself CONSTANTLY making the wrong choice.
Is it too cold for that coat? Will that coat make me look gigantic compared to my slacks? Will that coat keep me warm enough?
UGH. Men don’t have to think about this shit. I mean sure Bob from accounting hates getting up early in the winter as much as the rest of us but he’s not analyzing how his winter coat influences his professional cred when he wakes up each day.
He doesn’t feel defeated when his winter coat doesn’t work with half his outfits.
He definitely doesn’t spend his lunches vetting the new North Face puffer on women’s CNBC. But chat with any professional woman that has to wear a winter coat and she’ll rattle off coatfails just as sad as yours.
We’ve all been there- desperately scrolling online looking for that coat that will be it. Will keep us warm, look professional, won’t break the bank AND work with everything we have to wear to work. Obviously I’m not giving up- quite the contrary.
If I see a woman rocking around Boston that is both professionally acceptable and warm I’m mentally noting to ask her where she got that coat. I have hope guys. A thin blanket of hope.
And in case you were wondering- I didn’t end up wearing that cute DVF dress I mentioned to work. Opted for something warmer that would allow me to layered on more in the office. Guess I’ll have to wait until next client dinner to give it a try.
