I have now commuted downtown on the trolleybus for a week and a half and I am ready to comment on winter style in Vilnius, Lithuania. I haven't been able to get any good street fashion photos. I think that I'm took shy to take obvious photos and the "subtle" ones don't turn out. It's cold here -- although not as cold as much of the northern U.S. recently. The high temperatures have been in the mid-20s Fahrenheit but with wind chill it usually feels about 10 degrees colder.

Women in their 20s and 30s mostly wear skinny jeans tucked into boots or straight leg jeans over boots or booties. As I mentioned before I left, women in their 40s and 50s do not wear jeans. It is very unusual for me to see a woman my age wearing jeans rather than slacks. A lot of women wear skirts -- even though the one day I wore a skirt my legs froze. I don't know how they do it! There is a wide variety of coats -- from puffer coats to wool coats to fur. And of course hats, scarves and gloves. Most women wear black or brown boots, but the coats range in color.

I've compromised between being an American and being a 44-year old woman in Lithuania by mostly wearing my dark wash boot cut jeans. I feel like I'm age appropriate but still true to my jeans-wearing style. The problem, of course, is that the hems get really dirty with all the sand and salt put down on the sidewalks to make them passable with the snow and ice. I try to rinse out the worst of it each evening and I am washing my bootcut jeans more frequently.

I know that I blend in wearing my down coat etc. because people will speak to me on the street in Lithuanian and expect me to understand. I always feel like laughing when they ask me directions since I'm usually lost myself! On days that I work in the archives, I do stand out as a foreigner because I wear my backpack computer case. Women my age in Vilnius definitely do not wear big black backpacks! I know that Angie is cringing at this moment, but it really is necessary. In addition to my laptop, I have to carry my Lithuanian and Russian dictionaries. There aren't little paperback phrasebooks; there are big, heavy dictionaries (the Russian one is even hardbound). Plus I take a thermos of hot tea and a snack. The reading room is cold and there is not convenient place to get food or a drink (not even a water fountain). The only way to carry all of this without putting a strain on my back/neck/shoulders is to use the backpack. So I am sacrificing style for a healthy spine.

So that's my report on Vilnius-style in the winter. More to come...