The weather may not have wooed me back to Brew City, but the crisp winds are an excuse for me to extend my current style obsession with leg warmers into a month that typically calls for shorts and tank tops out west.
Perhaps it's my current inability to work out that is leaning me toward an ode to Jane Fonda and Olivia Newton John. Maybe I just need to keep my calves and ankles extra toasty in this brisk Wisconsin spring. Whatever it is, I am rocking the hell out of legwarmers.
Some items are totally functional and look completely killer. Just like the brilliance of a "cozy" for your beer can (I saw an amazeballs brown and yellow "Atari" one the other day) or a "cover" for your textbooks (come on – don't you remember buying book covers with your favorite band on them? Made Social Studies bearable!)
Legwarmers are a must-have item that can transform your silhouette and are a cheap accessory that can completely change the look of a piece of clothing you currently own.
Short girls should immediately pull on a pair of what are essentially oversize, footless socks to elongate the legs. This illusion is especially emphasized by a pair of heels or platforms snuck underneath the warmers to create a long, lean leg line. Pimp-style and an optical illusion of being taller! Do it now, shorties, do it now.
You can also morph your skinny jeans and leggings into a bootcut shape by hiking a pair on and exaggerating the width at the bottom of the legwarmer. In other words, stretch those mothers out. Keep them tight starting below the knee and then stretch them so that they gradually flare toward your foot. This is pure recessionista fashinonista. It's like getting two pairs of pants in one.
You can also use legwarmers as forearm warmers with tank tops. Excellent for covering tattoos, or creating the illusion of "sleeves" for those who haven't made the inked leap.
I even love when the bottoms get super gnarly from getting beat to all hell. Then legwarmers go from retro '80s to punk chic.
My favorite place to buy legwarmers is from Boxed Gifts LLC on eBay. They have several colors of my beloved three-button legwarmer. They ship quickly for free in an adorable box, and when I got a pair of the wrong color, they offered to send me a pair of the correct ones without me even asking! Ebay in general, though, has some dope legwarmers for a steal, so I'm warning you, if you browse, you will buy. I just purchased a pair while writing this ...
I never thought I'd be wishing for the spring chill to last a little longer, but I am going to be warming my legs for as long as I can tolerate "feeling the burn," just like Jane says.
I may be sentenced to exercise exile, but my accessories are still getting physical.
Lindsay Garric is a Milwaukee native who calls her favorite city home base for as long as her lifestyle will allow her. A hybrid of a makeup artist, esthetician, personal trainer and entrepreneur all rolled into a tattooed, dolled-up package, she has fantasies of being a big, bad rock star who lives in a house with a porch and a white picket fence, complete with small farm animals in a version of Milwaukee that has a tropical climate.
A mishmash of contradictions, colliding polar opposites and a dash of camp, her passion is for all pretty things and the products that go with it. From makeup to workouts, food to fashion, Lindsay has a polished finger on the pulse of beauty, fashion, fitness and nutrition trends and is super duper excited to share that and other randomness from her crazy, sexy, gypsy life with the readers of OnMilwaukee.com.
