Cute Clothes For This Long Winter

We're embracing visible socks, soft pants and absurd coats till spring hits. It's your February Outfit Report!

I somehow haven’t done a proper Outfit Report for you since November, despite continuing to be a person who does wear clothes, every day—and has even had to leave the house several times in recent months. But I stopped wearing hard pants a week before Christmas and have only put real jeans on again maybe twice so far in 2025. I’ve been feeling fairly meh about “fashion” full stop, which I’ll attribute to being stuck in that stretch of winter where truly anything other than the coziest clothes feels like A PROJECT. I know everyone starts to feel optimistic about spring once March hits, but imo, March, in the Northeast, is actually the very worst part of winter. It stays cold, you get a few random warm days but nothing is green yet. Stick season is a lot.

But I have had a few reasons (book events, a fun weekend trip!) to wear cute outfits and have done my best to document and link these things for you.

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What I Wore in February (Also December and January)

This sweater is the rare Target purchase that is both shockingly affordable and holding up to multiple seasons of wear. (I do wash it very minimally and only on cold/air dry!!) And these stripey socks are helping me work through my perpetual feelings about ankle boots and cropped straight leg jeans. Yes, Target is wildly disappointing right now (I actually just signed up for a Costco membership in a rage and am thinking about trying to divest at least…over there?). But the rare fast fashion purchase that LASTS seems worth documenting because not everyone can afford the $$$$ versions of these chunky knit sweaters. Rest of the outfit linked here.

This was actually my New Year’s Eve outfit, and look those boots are a splurge, but you can’t get mad at me for shopping at Target and not shopping at Target in the same post. Plus they are gorgeous and shockingly comfortable. Truly, they are the black boots a minimalist WASP lady would buy and keep to pass on to her grandchildren. I’m from Connecticut, but I don’t pretend to generally be that kind of shopper… but I have resisted buying any other black heeled boots for about two years now, pls clap? (Rest of outfit here.)

We’ve already talked about this coat, which was a rental and has since gone back to Nuuly—but I strongly suspect I’ll rent it again next winter, if not before. Here’s what else I could link from this outfit, which is a lot of older pieces. I wore this outfit to have this conversation with

Helen Rosner

, which was easily one of the best Thursday nights of my 2025.

(For the record, these heeled black boots were dead cheap and purchased a year or two prior to the fancy black boots above…they are also clogs, which feels somehow distinguishing?)

And this is actually what I look like most of the time rn. You’ve heard me wax poetic about these bootcut leggings already. I would also like to sing the praises of this bag, which I bought for travel last summer and continue to find shockingly useful —and it’s a crossbody, but they’ve released an extra-long strap so it actually fits across most bodies!

TL/DR: Stick Season Virginia is vaguely yoga mom, deeply hard pants-averse, but still needs her pop of color (sneakers! and they now come in such a cute navy?!) to feel alive.

What are you wearing and feeling cozy in right now? Give us links and recs!

(The comments section is always for paid subscribers only because that’s how we keep the trolls out. And Burnt Toasties have the best recs, so click here to join us!)

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Why Outfit Reports?

My goal with these posts is never to make you feel like you should go buy clothes you don’t need. I show how I get dressed because figuring that out as a fat person was an important part of my own body reclamation work. And because it’s endlessly frustrating to look at clothes on retail websites with bodies shaped nothing like mine, and have to squint, imagining how a shirt would look on totally different proportions. You can see all the past Outfit Reports right here.

A Note About Affiliate Links:

I include affiliate links in these posts because we’re often asked where we got something, and finding/adding all those links is labor—so using links that also earn Burnt Toast a small commission feels like a fair trade. (This doesn’t raise the price for you at all.) But I remain committed to keeping Burnt Toast and ad- and sponsor-free space, so you’re only ever going to see clothes that I’ve purchased (or stole from my mom). I don’t accept free merchandise from brands and I don’t do sponsored content.

If you ever want to track down something else you’ve seen me wear, it’s likely saved in the Burnt Toast LTK Shop or on the Burnt Toast ShopMy page.