Ljs: How to look good in winter, or not

It's impossible to look good and stay warm in winter, unless you call looking like a Glo Worm good, which, of course, you don't. Email sartorial dilemmas to ask.hadley@guardian.co.uk

How does one stay stylish and warm in winter?

M Seaton, by email

One does not, M Seaton, because it is not possible. Now don't despair: anecdote incoming!

Gather close, dear readers, while I regale you with a story. A fascinating story, full of human triumph and woe, and which will no doubt one day feature on literature school syllabuses (syllabi? Whatevs) across the land. It is a story that features ? I say with a blush and a modest dip of my head ? me.

Recently, I decided to move to New York. However, I guess there was a mix-up at the airport because I appear to have in fact moved to the north pole, and as I write there is a car outside my window buried in so much snow it looks like an installation by Jeff Koons: Snow Car. Unsurprisingly, my Topshop winter coat just could not cope with such an unacceptably cold clime and ? with a sad little wheeze and a whispered plea that I give no more money to that human fat cat, aka Philip Green ? it expired last month. I buried it in a local park and watered its grave with my icy tears.

Anyhow, off I went to an outdoors shop, walked in and bellowed: "Give me the warmest coat you have!" It was like that scene in Pretty Woman when Richard Gere demands the most expensive clothes in the shop, but with less of a prostitutional undertone. The warmest coat they had, and the one I now sport, was a full-length black padded number or, as I call it, my fat burqa. When I pull up the hood, thereby cloaking my entire person in quiltedness, I look like one of those Glo Worms (pictured) children have whose face glows when you squeeze -its tummies, which is perfect because that's exactly what happens to my face when my tummy is squeezed. All in all, it's an amazing coat, me and my amazing not-very-technicolour coat.

But note, M Seaton, the carefully chosen word ? "amazing" ? not "chic". I do not resemble a vision of heavenly femininity in this coat. In fact, to see me in this coat paired with my previously discussed Uggs (aka feet heroin) is to see a visual representation of the death of hope.

But what of it? Here's the thing, M Seaton, come winter time, you have two choices: looking good or looking warm. To be warm, one requires either a lot of padding, or a lot of fur. Neither is a good look. But really, what is the point in choosing the looking-good option? You'll just stand around and shiver and whine, which will immediately cancel out the potential looking goodness of your (too skimpy) outfit, and eventually just go home and spend the whole of February in your flat where no one will be able to appreciate your look. Now, admittedly, maybe some people would rather remain in isolation than be seen in public resembling a giant GloWorm. But those people are daft. Fat burqas are just sooooo this season.

Is it ever acceptable for a man to dye his hair to cover up the grey?

E Pilkington, New York

What kind of crazy-ass question is this? Come, come, E Pilkington, I am sure there is not a strand of grey in your luxuriant crop of hair. Surely you're 35, right? I mean, 25!

Whatever age you are, no, it is not. It is fine for women, but not for men. Doubtless a certain and possibly deluded male columnist in the Daily Mail would say that this adds further credence to his claim from last week that the world is sexist against men, an accusation only slightly undermined by his further claim that, "I was terribly shy about sex and yet girls were trying to do it with me all the time. I used to run, literally run, from their bedrooms when they tried it on" (due to an editing mistake the words "in my fevered, fetid dreams" were lopped off the end of the sentence).

But you know what, strange male columnist? Deal. Here, have a side of childbirth with your whining. And anyway, the reason it is not acceptable for men to dye their hair is the opposite of anti-male. It's anti-female. It is as much of a cliche as it is true to say that a greying man looks distinguished whereas a greying woman is dismissed as haggard. Ergo, to see a man dyeing his hair is like seeing a man toss his winning lottery ticket in the gutter. And that is why a man who dyes his hair looks so stupid: he's squandering a marvellous gift. And if he uses Paul McCartney's hair dye, he looks even more stupid.

Hadley Freeman

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds