Why Would Anyone Do That?

A “small but influential clan” of fashion-conscious New Yorkers are avoiding watching the weather, confounding — and making rich — clothes designers everywhere:

House keys? Check. Cellphone? Check. Last minute consult with weatherman. Er . . . In planning her day, Melissa Briskman did give the weather a cursory thought. “Before leaving the house I stuck my head out the window,” said Ms. Briskman, an actress and English teacher, who shivered perceptibly as she waited outside Cafe Gitane on Mott Street on Saturday.

Her only defense against the wicked storm forecast for that day was the light wool coat she had pulled halfheartedly over a tissue-weight tunic and leggings. “I just wear what I want to wear when I want to wear it,” she said, “and I make it work.”

Earlier in the week Patricia Black, the director of a fashion showroom in New York, just as determinedly blew winter a raspberry. Ms. Black arrived at work in a summery dress of white cotton eyelet. “I knew it was awfully cold out,” she said. “I was thinking, ‘Oh, maybe this dress would be a little breath of springtime in February.'”

Ms. Briskman and Ms. Black are members of a small but influential clan of New Yorkers, mostly young, who in a week when temperatures plunged to the 20’s ignored sullen skies and stinging winds and, along with them, conventional notions of dressing for the season. Sure, some wore leggings, granddaddy sweaters, chunky boots and jeans, but mainly to set off their filmy tops and flowery dresses.