When it's really cold out, and the sidewalks are covered in a millimeter thin layer of ice that constantly has me slipping and sliding, and everyone is being a dick because they haven't seen sunlight in three months, it can be hard to remember why I live in a cold weather city.

And then it's spring, and I officially lose my shit, because I (along with everyone else in the city) has been waiting for that first 45+ degree day like it's fucking Christmas.

It might sound like I'm exaggerating, but I'm not. You know how I much I talk about weather on here? Take that, then multiply it by 9 hours, 5 days a week. If there was no weather, Chicagoans' tongues would shrivel up into dried little husks because we would have nothing else to talk about.

Of course, any change in the weather always leaves me, at least temporarily, at odds with my wardrobe. I was doing that thing where I would look in my closet, rifle through my drawers, and then collapse onto my bed in a melodramatic huff while proclaiming that I have nothing to wear. Because yes, I guess I'm 15. I have some tricks that usually help pull me out of a wardrobe funk - taking care of my mending, doing some reorganizing, taking care of my laundry - but what really helped me out this time was looking through spring fashion shows.

For someone as into vintage fashion as I am, I do spend an awful lot of time perusing the mainstream stuff. What it really comes down to is that there are a lot of creative people out there who spend a lot of time thinking about what's cool, or fun, or pretty, or flattering; they've got libraries to consult and teams of people to help bring their vision to life. I feel like even if you're not buying modern clothing, or if you prefer to sew your own, you do yourself a bit of a disservice by not checking out a fashion show once in a while.

The weird thing about fashion is that if you watch the shows as they happen, it throws your mental clock off a little bit, since fall shows are going on right now and the spring shows were six months ago. By the time comes around to actually wear the clothes, I've largely forgotten all about the stuff that I was going nuts over when I first saw it.

I love it when a jacket is just an accessory and not a thing you have to have if you don't want to die of exposure.

So this look was pretty directly inspired by a Michael Kors look that I was very happy to discover was just as pretty as I thought it was when I first saw, all the way back in September of last year.

Ok, so my version doesn't have hundreds of flowers appliqued to it, and maybe it's still a little chilly to go bare legged, but the what matters is that I felt really cute today. It's amazing what one good outfit does for your outlook - I actually ended up making a whole list of different pairings that I hadn't thought of before that I thought might be fun for spring. A lot of them were inspired by other fashion shows, so I'll try to include photos of the inspiration if they're successful enough to post about.

So what do you like to do when you're in a wardrobe funk? Do you have a reliable way to snap yourself out of that spring fever?