Wacky Winter Accessories

It is officially time to hide away your flip-flops and itsy bitsy jean shorts — winter has come. Sandy may have been the lead culprit in dropping the weather a bitter 15 degrees, but the brisk winds are here to stay. Fortunately, downtown State College has all your winter needs. This season has brought all sorts of wacky cold weather accessories to keep you toasty.

One of the most brutal activities to partake in while heading to class in the dead of the winter is texting. And let’s face it — we are not going to stop texting. Appalachian Outdoors, located at 123 South Allen Street, has come to the rescue. Alyssum Pilato, a sales associate there, displayed touch screen compatible winter gloves made by Manzella.

Each finger of the glove has a pad on the outside that works with your touch screen. These tech-accessible pieces come in solid black and other interesting rainbow patterns. Your fingers will never again turn to icicles while catching up with all the gossip.

Over on 130 South Allen Street at Connections, Annamaria McDaniel, a sales associate, talked about the ever-popular infinity scarves. “We just unpacked our third huge box,” she says. They come in a variety of colors from off-white to hunter green and are “decently cheap”. These fashion-forward pieces wrap around your neck twice and keep you heated. If you have a few extra dollars to spare, Annamaria recommends the Free People scarves that come in even more colors and are just a touch softer.

Connections also sells cozy and decorative wintertime socks that look cute poking out of booties or can simply serve as warm socks to wear around the apartment.

Down the street at People’s Nation, located at 126 East College Avenue, there’s a ton of crazy and unique winter items. The store carries furry hats with attached mittens. These creative inventions have extra long earpieces extending from the hat with pockets for your hands. The hats come in a variety of different faux furs with or without animal ears.

The convenience of having two cold weather accessories in one item is key for the busy college student.

People’s Nation also carries full-face masks to bear the arctic temperatures State College throws at us. At first glance, these pieces look a bit scary but are a clutch when you are walking to class at 8am on a winter morning. If you have a bit of goofy side, the facemasks come in superhero designs like the hulk or a teenage mutant ninja turtle.

The downtown boutique, Access, located at 224 East College Ave, sells your typical trendy winter items. Cute and cozy scarves, gloves and hats are piled high on display.

A sales associate, Quinn Allen, says, “There is no specific winter staple,” but all the fashion forward items have been in high demand. However, Quinn did mention that the store was selling wrist warmers that are a new item for the winter racks. Whether too wacky or actually functional, wrist warmers are yet another addition to the ever growing winter accessories market.