These Boots Are Made For... Socks?

Although variations of the trend have been around since Jennifer Beals wore them in the movie Flashdance in 1983, leg warmers are back this year in a style that can be described, quite literally, as superficial.  This year, one doesn’t wear them around the legs for warmth.  One wears them around the boots – for fashion.  Still, for balancing out broad shoulders in a 1980s sort of way, you just can’t beat leg warmers for adding heft to nearly anything you’d care to wear below the knees.  And since I’m a vintage kind of gal with broad shoulders, leg warmers appeal to my retro sense of style.

So it was with genuine excitement that I opened a package that arrived on my birthday in September from my best friend, Kari, in Dallas, Texas.  Boot socks, they’re calling them now.  These beauties, from the brilliant faux pelt company, Donna Salyers’ Fabulous Furs, are the epitome of everything I love in fashion: warm earth tones, a genuine look and feel, criss-crossing faux-leather bands featuring round and pyramidal brass-colored studs and a feeling of luxury without being too over the top. It was love at first sight when I opened my birthday gift.  But the clincher for me was that I had a skinny belt in my closet from Kohl’s Department Store, a purchase I made at least two years ago, that sports the same brass-toned round and polyhedron embellishments. Kari couldn’t have known that. Yet she bestowed upon me the ideal birthday gift.  I could hardly wait for the weather to cool so I could wear my new “boot warmers”.

Now, finally, the weather has turned downright crisp in the mid-Atlantic. As I cast about my closet Tuesday for something to wear that would celebrate the transitional season without overheating me on my long commute by car, foot and subway train from my home in Baltimore County, Maryland to the Library of Congress in Washington D.C., the boot socks stood out as a perfect way to accessorize my look.

I started with sage colored leggings by HUE from Macy’s and added a vintage olive top by Fashion Force that my mother bought for me when I was a teenager in northern California. To that ensemble, I added only a copper colored denim vest by Flashback Couture, which was a gift to me last year from Kari’s mother, Joyce, in Spokane, Washington, some green, brown and tan pearl jewelry from Fire & Ice Jewelers of Baltimore, and distressed brown cowboy boots by Willie that I bought a few years ago at Designer Shoe Warehouse (DSW). I pulled my furry wraps over the leather boots and headed out the door for a day of research.

I hadn’t even made it all the way to Washington D.C. on the subway train before getting a compliment on my outfit from another passenger.  The young woman said my whole look was so “put together”.  We may be in the midst of an era in which mismatched pieces are de rigueur, but apparently one still gets points for  looking like she has it all together.  Hmmm.  I’ll walk to that!
Cheers,
Lynell