Okay guys, so it's starting to get pretty cold in the quaint little college town that I'm in... which means that it's time for everyone to pull out the Uggs and the North Face coats, right?

Wrong! Or at least, wrong for me. I don't know--having grown up in a city that didn't get THAT cold even in the dead of winter, I find that putting on clothing that makes you look like the Michelin Man or like you've just stuffed yourself into a bunch of nice, fluffy, over-sized marshmallows just isn't too cool. So far I've stubbornly stuck to layering up like crazy under a nice wool coat, which ends up being WAY too cool in the -literal- sense of the word.

So my question to you guys is... what do you do when it's really cold (really, like wind and snow and entire days below freezing point) outside and you want to keep your internal organs nice and toasty, without entirely relinquishing the dignity of your appearance?

On a related note... am I the only person who has serious issues deciphering what online descriptions mean with regards to how practical an article of clothing is? I feel like I've seen a lot of decently cute coats, bomber jackets and parkas out there with really vague descriptions. For example, I can't tell what temperature a "quilted lining" is good for...