Help, help, it’s hellishly cold outside and all I want to do is to wear my duvet and cinch it in with a belt and go about my business! How do I keep my toes warm while retaining my fashion cred?

Today´s post is a bit of a tricksy one. I am only writing this to let you know that I gave Maria a Polyvore challenge yesterday – the text message above, to be exact – and that she grabbed it with both hands and ran with it like the fashion superhero that she is over at her post How to dress for freezing winter days! Hop on over there for some great advice and some very pretty Polyvores :)

As you can see, I desperately need her help, because this is what I look like most mornings these days. It´s a good thing I already have a boyfriend, because I would snag no men in this getup.

If you know me you´ll know that I have a slight obsession with bags. The black leather shoulder/satchel variety is my poison of choice, and I like to carry a lot of things with me, something which naturally leads to stiff and weary shoulders every now and then. I have known that I should own a backpack for a while already, but I kept avoiding it because I could not for the life of me think of one I could get that wouldn´t make me feel like a was back in elementary school. I refused to wear a backpack when I was in university as well, so it is safe to say that my backpack-avoidance have been going on for quite a while now.

However, two weeks ago I stumbled across a blog post that made things click for me. Dead Fleurette wrote about her search for the perfect rucksack, and from going through the links left in the comments on that post I realized what I wanted. Black leather (duh), silver hardware, simple and a little bit slouchy. After an evening of browsing eBay and Etsy I found it, and a few days of discussing it back and forth with myself I placed my order.

I didn´t feel particularly modelesque today, so I let my chair be the model du jour.

I found it at an Etsy store called BlueDrop and I am very happy with the seller. The bag is hand made in Greece and I could track it every step of the way, and it took about a week to get to me. It is ridiculously light and fits all my everyday essentials, and best of all, my shoulders will be very happy to get a break from the heavy shoulder bags and satchels. Oh, and let´s not forget – it looks pretty cool too. I´m in love!