You exhale as you enter the ski lodge. The scent of cinnamon, the low lights, and the hum of hellos are a lullaby as you sink into a couch upholstered in pine trees. Sleepy after an afternoon on the slopes, your eyes begin to close. Then a barista appears. Soon you're sipping hot chocolate and devouring a double fudge brownie because, hey, you've earned it. Content and sated, you settle into the embrace of your brand-new sweater. Maybe it's an alpine-appropriate fair isle, a preppy argyle, or even that old classic, cable knit. But the main thing is that it thaws you from the inside out, just like the snowman-turned-boy in that Campbell Soup commercial, suffusing you with a warm, happy glow. This time you let your eyes close, the cozy-soft cotton cradling you to sleep as you dream of whipped cream-topped chocolate mountains.
I've never been to a ski lodge. But I imagine that this is how I'd feel if I went -- minus, of course, the actual skiing -- especially the part about the sweater. Because new clothes aren't just about trends and looking good. They're also about those seemingly divergent but intertwined entities of adventure and security. You know. That feeling that if you buy a cocktail dress, then you just might be invited somewhere fab to wear it. And that this will give you something to look forward to (that's the adventure) as well as something to make you feel that all's right with the world (that's the security). And even if that golden invitation never arrives, which, let's face it, is often the case in these quarantine times, then you can always take the dress or suit or stilettos for a spin in your living room. Which is its own kind of adventure.
That's how I feel about today's sweaters. Well, to be accurate, one sweater dress and two sweaters, none of which looks as though it belongs in a ski lodge. They arrived in the mail and I hung them up, accessorizing them a million times in my mind before settling on what you see here, namely the themes of '80s heartbreak, western glam, and an eclectic mix (mess?) featuring a bag that looks like a bottle of bubbly. The bag's funny because I'm a teetotaler. But then, a partygoer who doesn't drink is a lot like a lodge lounger who doesn't ski.
Which is another way of saying that quarantine or not, I'd take my living room over the lodge any day.
Still, I wouldn't say no to a black diamond-grade sweater.
Or to a double fudge brownie.