friday frivolity | for the love of coats

We've had a brief spate of mild weather days that have had temps in the 60's--a good thing when winter has definitely already worn out it's welcome about two months ago.  In recent years, one of my winter month coping mechanism is the binge-buying of both boots and outerwear.  Long gone are the days of that sad single (usually black, sometimes gray) pea coat variation that I expected to carry me from beginning to end of the season (and usually only weathered a couple years before I simply wore it out or the coat became serious compromised by wear.)

A couple years back, I began collecting in earnest--my favorite Lands End design in a bunch of different shades (my grey go-tweed, raspberry, teal, tan)  A couple of oddballs--a leoopard faux fur, a red babydoll car coat, a pale salmon peacoat. And of course, a couple black wool and one gray,  variations on the pea coat that always work with everything.)  My faves are a grey tweed with a rich chocolate fur collar and a beautiful faux persian lamb super dressy coat.   I tend to shop Ebay exclusively for outerwear, so have gotten many of these at a steal, particularly if they're used, sometimes less than $20. This winter bought a more casual brown tweed number, as well as the most glorious pink tweed Lane Bryant long coat I stumbled upon a few weeks ago (above).  Also a  $12 70's rocker fur collared suede  that I haven't yet had the opportunity to wear.

Do I need this many coats?  Probably not..but when I'm hauling ass out into the winter tundra pretty much every day, at least I get to do it with a little bit of happy and flair, which is about all I can ask for. ( of course, my mild weather jacket collection is also a little unruly these days, which are usually cheaper and therefore more tempting even than cold-weather coats--so maybe that logic doesn't hold up at all.)