10 essential Halifax fashion accessories

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MEGHAN TANSEY WHITTON

1. Rubber boots
Unless you want to live with perpetual trench foot you better get something waterproof on your tootsies. Sideways rain, deep puddles, swampy green-spaces and a winter that’s more wet-and-melty than white-and-fluffy will make your rubbers a welcome outfit staple. Also somehow socially acceptable? Wearing knee high Hunters when there isn’t a cloud in the sky.

2. Blundstones
Nine out of every 10 Haligonians agree, these are a must-have. The clunky Australian-made boots are decently waterproof and durable to any weather nightmare this city can throw at you. Pro tip: Label the inside of your pair. It’ll help with the literal heap of beat-up Blundstones you’ll inevitably encounter at a party.

3. Wool socks
Continuing with fashion foot notes is a glowing recommendation for grandaddy’s ratty pit socks—an essential piece to your east coast layering. The bigger, and thicker, the better. Wear them in your new Blundstones or with your Birkenstocks and tuck your pants into them.

4. Spandex shorts
A helpful accessory for the hurricaney shoulder seasons and life in a city full of wind tunnels, a cheap pair of bike shorts will make the many unglamorous Marilyn Monroe moments (you know, when your skirt becomes a hood) much less cringeworthy.

5. Rain pants
Forget about packing an umbrella because they do not work in this windy city (again, sideways rain) and invest in some frumpy but functional waterproof pants—because sitting through a three-hour lecture feeling like you just pissed yourself is optional, not unavoidable.

6. Raincoat
If they made an ankle-length version, I’d take it. See above.

7. Second-hand denim
Tie your many layers of accessories together with the least waterproof material of all, like high-waisted jeans, billowy-in-the-butt Levi’s or a boxy denim coat.

8. Blanket scarf
Perfect for: When it’s too cold to wear your denim jacket but you still do, naps in the library, naps in the coffee shop, naps on the bus, carrying groceries when you forget the Quinpool Superstore is bagless and hiding from that professor you owe a paper to.

9. Pittsburgh Penguins jersey
Sid the Kid is basically a blood relative now, and you’ve gotta support the family.

10. Location-specific graphic tee
Repping your city/province/side of the country on a shirt is now the Nova Scotian equivalent of kissing the cod. And Halifax is a town of many t-shirt entrepreneurs, so get ’em while they’re hot.