How to stay warm in cold weather
in response to those not really helpful fashion advice that are useless if it's actually cold
brought to you from someone that thinks a normal winter is anything between 0 to -30 degrees Celcius.
Layers. The ground principle of staying warm is understanding that what keeps you warm isn't exactly the clothes themself, but rather the air inbetween layers of clothes, that acts as insulation. Which means, that you want more layers of clothing the colder it gets.
Many layers don't mean you have to walk around in bulky clothes. Several thin layers on top of each other can sometimes be much warmer than one big bulky sweater. Additionally, many thin layers of clothes, makes it easier to regulate heat by taking on or off a layer or two, which means you don't have to sweat in your warm clothes because there's nothing underneath. Because in the long run, that sweat is only going to cool you down more. Which is good in the summer, because that's the purpose of sweat: creating moitsture keeping you cold. But if you try to stay warm, you don't want to dress overly warm and start sweating, because that defeats the whole purpose.
Don't leave gaps! Gaps that exposes the skin, for example at the ankles or the wrist, makes it possible for cold air to come in under all the layers of clothing we established in the previous point. So we don't want those. We want to trap that warm air between the layers to stay warm.
That means: tuck your longjohns into your socks. Wear sleeves long enough that there's no gap between them and the mittens, wear a scarf (or two if it's really cold) to trap the air from escaping from around your neck.
What you also want to do, is wearing overlapping layers. Like if you have three layers on your legs and three on your torso, you put them on like: one trouser, one shirt, one trouser, one shirt etc., so there becomes several overlaps in the waist area, which traps the air inside much more efficiently than having all the shirts on top of all the trousers, which would leave one gap for the air to come in. This is especially important if you are supposed to play around in the snow. Then it would be so easy for the shirts to ride up and suddenly you have exposed skin to cold air or snow inside your clothes. Trapping the clothes into each other keeps things in place and the warm air stays where it should.
Shoes. Good wintershoes are really important. When I need new wintershoes I look for shoes with a thick sole (that will insulate from the cold coming up from the ground) and I buy shoes that are one or two sizes bigger than my summer shoes. Why do I do that? Because my feet also need layers! And if the shoes are too thight, there's no room for the insulating air layers.
Usually I wear one pair of normal socks and one pair of knitted wool socks in my shoes. If the shoes are too tight, it's warmer to only wear on pair of socks, than to try to squeeze in two layers and thus not giving any room for the warm air layer inbetween. There should be wiggle room for your toes. So, bigger shoes than in summer are recommended. There are also these insulating inner soles you can buy to put into the shoes to make them warmer. Boots that are high enough to not let snow come inside when you step in it is also nice. (When snow comes inside it melts and moisture makes you cold, as previously mentioned. So make sure to keep dry!)
Focus on feet, hands, the bum and the head. These are the areas you should focus on keeping warm, because when they get cold, your whole body gets cold quicker. This means that it is never a good idea to leave behind mittens or a hat. More than half your body heat dissapears from the head when it's cold, so please wear something on your head! And not just earmuffs. This is also another reason to wear a scarf. Especially if it's windy. Because then the wind blows away the warm layer of air around your skin.
It is good to have a winter coat that goes down below your bum and that has a hood.
Materials. In my opinion, wool is a wonderful material in winter. It keeps warm, it breathes and it's the only fibre that doesn't get cold when it gets wet. A lot of my winter clothes are wool. Both longjohns, undershirts, socks, scarves, leg warmers etc.
Natural fibres such as wool, cotton and linnen breathe, which makes it less likely to become sweaty. Man-made fibres like polyester traps the moisture inside, but they can also be insulating. This means that polyester isn't something you want closest to your skin, but it's good for rain proof outergarments. But several layers of clothing has more of an impact than the material, so no need to gatekeep or buy new clothes: use what you already have.
Now for some fun and practial tips and less theory.
*You can wear skirts in winter! Just layer up several of them. And if you wear full lenght skirts, nobody knows how many layers of sweatpants there are underneath.
*If your arms are long and sleeves tend to be too short: use detatchable sleeves/arm warmes. Like leg warmers, but for arms! I always put on those before I put on my wintercoat to keep my hands warmer and close any potetial gap between layers.
*Thermal pants! Or outdoor trousers as I call them. Like those you use when skiing downhill. (I hope people know what I mean.) Use those in everyday life when going outside. Then you don't need to put on as many layers of clothes to keep your legs warm, and it's easy to take off when you come inside again.
*But what if you want to express your style while outside in the cold? Don't you dare unzip your jacket to show off things underneath or do something else that goes against the points previously made. Then you will be cold and it's your own fault. Instead: focus on scarves, hats and mittens that match your style. Maybe even a winter jacket in a colour that you like. (Mine is dark blue and in a vintage style. I love it so much. It took three months to sew, because I'm a nerd that makes things myself.) Or you just stay fashionable while inside and let all outerlayers be entirely practical. That's up to you. (I'm just a disembodied voice on the internet. Do what you want!)
*If it's really cold I wear two layers of mittens (finger gloves underneath fingerless mittens) and two layers of scarves (one underneath the jacket and one on top) . Anything can be layered. Just cover as much skin as possible which as much layers as possible.
*Move around! Don't stand still! The warm air in between the layers of clothes comes from your own body heat, not the clothes themselves.
So that's all that my mind can come up with now. Maybe I remember something more some other time or someone else adds in a rb.