Smittie, I love your comment. Canadians are connoisseurs of warm clothing, and I have benefitted from your collective knowledge. BTW, you also forgot Cabella's, Woolrich, and Fjallraven.

Hmm, perhaps the trick is to stop saying, "I cannot look chic because [insert extenuating circumstances here]" and start looking at the opportunities afforded by our locale. Parisians look great in the rain because... trench coats! Denverites look great in the cold because... boots! Etc. Etc.

Jenn, that's exactly what I was trying to convey. That if we considered our environments very honestly and thought about the type of garments that really work and look great there...as well as considering our own personal characteristics and what suits us, we might acquire the Parisienne confidence and savoir faire.

Smittie, I was rolling on the floor at your catalog comment! Come visit Central New York some time. We have a wide variety of sporting goods and catalog shops. We have the Bass Pro Carhart crowd, the Sears/Lands End crowd, we have the EMS/REI/and or what I will call upscale sporting goods crowd ( I would place The North Face and Columbia here) we have the llBean/Eddie Bauer crowd which is sort of between crunchy and preppy, then we have the more sophisticated/elaborate cold weather shoppers as well. All these divisions are arbitrary of course. Move any company into whatever category you feel it belongs, it doesn't matter. If you are in the United States, it probably varies depending on where you live! As I'm writing this I am starting to believe these divisions are due to socioeconomic and educational/vocational demographic divisions, not lack or presence of sophistication about how to dress for cold weather.

In cities with multiple seasons is it harder to pinpoint a sense of style for the population? Does the style shift and change with the weather, or does is it shift with the demographic? For example do college students dress differently than business women,? If they do, is it because of budget? Age? Taste level? Need? Sophistication?

Staysfit, we could do a fun US/ CAN comparison of the outdoor stores available!! Cross border shopping at its finest.

In my small city, the style does change to a degree between summer and winter, but some of that is also dependent on a changing demographic! I live in a university town so it is filled with college kids in the F/W. Then in summer the tourists arrive in their shorts and flip flops but most of the tourists are older so they wear a different type of shorts and flip flops than the college kids would! Far more bright colours and bling on display in summer. Far more white (we live on the lake so nautical looks are popular). In winter, it's all denim and boots, all the time. And puffers!

Suz, I would say it's fairly similar here in our small city, which has multiple college campuses, although it's not a tourist destination except for our mall which was enlarged and designed to attract Canadians. Seriously! Our mall is the tourist destination! Who knew?! FWIW I hate our mall! It's too large and I rarely find anything I like there.

Our city is also located on a lake, but they have been clearing it of toxic waste for the past few years! I'm not sure I trust the clean up crew (does anyone here work with toxic waste? I need some scientific reassurance.). In any case, they say it's safe to swim in the lake now, but I have no plans to try. (Would you?)

Mr. Staysfit is a professor at one of the local universities/colleges. The colleges are all so different from each other and that leads to different style personas for each. I wish I could come up with a description as nice as yours about the different shorts and flip flops! Maybe thrifting would be the comparison. Everyone thrifts in college. However, one college campus thrifts for environmental friendliness and minimalism/ the other campus does it for their artful creative side. It leads to very different sorts of looks(right?). The minimal utilitarian, vs. the arty bohemian. The boundaries aren't time of year as much as geographic with a slight overlap of campus along one edge.

That is fascinating, Staysfit!! We should visit each other's cities and be flies on the wall. I'll bet each of us would have interesting insights about the differences and similarities between our two geographically close environments!

We also have multiple institutions of higher learning here. There is the university, the Royal Military College (which grants university degrees), and the community college. And I would agree that there is a different fashion vibe at each. I study and teach at the university and Mr. Suz is a prof there, so I am most familiar with that. Plus, there are a lot more males at the military college.

I like your distinction between the different types of thrifting. There is thrifting here also but I think it is done more by "townies" than by the college kids, who tend to be quite well off. The university is one of the top ones in our province and even in the country. Many of the students drive BMWs and Audis and wear Nobis and Mackage rather than North Face parkas.

What a fascinating topic.
I'm not sure if all places are like this or not but here a lot of people bike, run, walk to work or on their lunch etc. so what you see on the street is not actually what they wear to work.
I truly find it appalling what Marilyn said about the government workers though...jeans and shorts, give me a break. Back in my day it was suits or suits. They later relaxed the dress code to include a dressy skirt or pants and jacket with blouse or silk/cashmere/lambswool sweater . No jeans or cords ever!!! Not even if your entire office was moving to join another department due to reorganization..Sure you wore your jeans in but went downstairs to the gym and changed into real clothes before going up to the offices. Not all government offices were the same as they had a different clientele but a minimum still existed with a no jeans policy.
I do think parisienne style is revered as most women would deem it appropriate for a business meeting, wedding, ladies lunch or funeral.
Fascinating about the play of light and wardrobes...so true yet I never even thought of it in those terms. Also fascinating about the universities and colleges and yet so true. My ds and his mate are from alternate universities here in town and more than just fashion is different, no idea how they got together...lol.