I Blame the Cold

It must have been the recent cold snap, but I suddenly decided I need a pair of mukluks, or at the very least, some vintage Snowland Apres Ski boots.

My mother had a pair like the ones for sale here: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-SNOWLAND-SKI-BOOTS-in-orig-box-SZ-8-8-5-brown-tan-fur-leggings-/271366385817?pt=US_Women_s_Shoes&hash=item3f2eb27099

I'm tempted. I probably won't because I know they will turn up at one of my regular re-sale haunts in my fairly common shoe size. Eventually. Then, I won't want them, it will be August, and I'll decide I need something else I don't really want. I have fantastic restraint for a vintage lover.  That, and I'm a cheapskate.

Personally, I'd prefer the up to the knee traditional mukluk, but I'm not sure how much cultural appropriation I can get away with. Without a dogsled, they'd look kind of stupid, seal coat or not.

My mother wore her Snowland boots for years. I have photographs of her in front of the house during the Blizzard of '67 wearing them with a princess coat, a "ski cap" cap ("Toque", if you're Canadian or, "knit cap" pretty much everywhere else in the English speaking world), and what appears to be a dress beneath (her legs looked bare). She didn't look cold, so I'd chalk it up to the boots.  I don't think they ever wore out, she simply moved on to Moon Boots http://mycrazylifewithatoddler.blogspot.com/2008/08/if-you-were-little-girl-in-1970s-and.html like everyone else. Chicago gets quite a bit of snow, so I can't really blame her. The photos are black and white, so I can't say what colour the coat was-probably red. We have a thing for red wool coats in my family.

We rarely get enough snow here (in terms of inches on the ground at once) to justify that sort of boot, but somehow they just look so much better from a distance of forty(plus) years.

Thank god I'm allergic to rubber, or I'd probably want the fur-lined 1940's overboots.