Vicky Ewan: A love-hate relationship with winter wear

Is it just me, or do other people have a problem with hoods? Now, I should clarify at this point that I am not employing street slang circa 1960s New York, West Side Story-style; I am not referencing the hoodlums prevalent in Manhattan's desolate playgrounds, who rip through the concrete jungle and lay waste to the city's streets, blasting forth their anthems with the verve and ferocity of fizzing adolescence whilst I, with snappy syntactical skill, shorten their nickname to ‘hoods’. No, please set that thrilling image aside; I am literally (perhaps disappointingly) talking about the hoods on coats.

I have two coats on the go at present, one of which I have resurrected every winter for at least a decade, glad to snuggle inside its steadfast warmth for another year. This old faithful was a Christmas present from my husband, and, to begin with, I did not love it. My husband is, in general, an excellent gift-giver (question: Should this attribute be explained by his only having to purchase presents for me, whilst I am fully encumbered by the weight (mental and physical) of all the other presents we are obliged to procure? I shall leave that to you to decide. (And anyway, I love gift buying and would loathe that joy to be denied me).

My husband is undeniably thoughtful and considerate, but we have been procuring presents for each other for nearly three decades, and the struggle is becoming real. The coat in question—actually, a jacket, if we are being pedantic, and I always am—was probably the fifth or sixth he had bestowed upon me. I recall, among others, a beautifully smart camel wrap coat, my Sunday best; a gorgeously soft, faded-blue denim jacket; and a stunning, cherry-red velvet corduroy coat with elegantly flared sleeves and oversize black buttons that I don when feeling especially festive. But this was none of those.

He handed me the package, the light of expectation bright in his eyes, and I opened it to find a padded jacket with a fur-lined hood and lurid pink toggles, its label boasting one of the trendiest nametags around. Now, I am not—nor have I ever, legitimately, claimed to be—trendy. I navigated the treacherous waters of secondary school without once dipping my toe in the popular pool, and I dare say my choice of clothes played its part in that positioning.

I tried to follow fashion at times, but there was a limited budget for clothing, and I rarely caught up with the latest fashion before it moved on to a new one. In addition, things just didn't sit as well on my shortish frame as they looked in the catalogues or on the effortlessly chic girls in my year. I resigned myself early on to dressing more for my own preference and comfort than to give Kate Moss a run for her money. Thus, when I caught sight of the gift my husband had so kindly selected for me, I'm afraid my face fell in dismay.

It was a jacket quite clearly aimed at a much younger, more stylish woman than I, and when I pulled it on and looked at myself in the mirror, I felt like a fraud. It was most definitely not love at first sight. But, sensing my husband's disappointment, I tried it on again a couple of days later—and had a complete change of heart.

Suddenly, the substantial padding felt wonderfully warming, the fluffy hood enveloped my face cosily, and the neon fastenings were merely a fun feature. No doubt, I still looked too old for such a youthful design, a theory borne out by a young woman many years my junior, whose own style sat sharply at the cutting edge of fashion, and who, upon catching sight of me in the coat, professed her deep envy; I like to think I simply twirled my toggles and smiled.

That was more than ten years ago, and the jacket has been my loyal companion ever since. But it does have a drawback: its hood, whose overly generous proportions shroud my face so effectively that it compromises my vision to the left and right with alarming efficacy. Crossing traffic-heavy roads on the school run, with my young son, blithely trusting in his mother's ability to ensure safe passage, in tow, was always something of a feat of favour and faith.

I have no such issue with my more recent purchase, a shiny brown raincoat that I acquired for its pleasing mid-calf length (and substantial January sales discount). Despite being similarly fur-lined, this coat's hood lacks staying power; the merest puff of wind propels it skittering backwards. Its insufficient depth means that, even when pulled forward as far as it can go, it offers scant protection against the inclemency of our British climate, with the result that I am forced to hold it in position, rather awkwardly.

I have found recently that if I walk with all my neck muscles straining and my chin held high, the forced elevation of the crown of my head will, temporarily, force the hood to remain in situ. This position, however, is uncomfortable to sustain, allows the rain to ransack my face with full force, and must appear mildly ridiculous (thankfully, most people I come across seem sensibly bent upon looking down to avoid exposing their own skin to the elements). Why is this clothing issue such a struggle? If I could somehow average out the volumes of each hood, I would be left with two perfectly proportioned, precipitation-defying head coverings. Alas, it is not to be, and I must either play chicken with the traffic or tolerate the rain on my face.

This Christmas, my husband presented me with another coat. It’s dark grey, woollen, and luxurious. And not a hood in sight. I love it.