Chic Winter Boots You Can (Really) Wear to Work

“Where are the snows of yesteryear?” the French poet François Villon famously asked. Villon was a wild child—jailbird, renegade, thief—but he was not offering a critique of global warming here, since he wrote those words circa 1461, or more than five centuries ago. No, we suspect he was just thinking back, the way you do, on those no-school days of your own youth, when those neck-high drifts, those snowmen and sled runs, filled you with crazy delight.

Let us put things in perspective: 1. That white blanket of your childhood only seemed deeper because you were so much smaller; and 2. It is barely January, which means the best—or the worst—is surely yet to come. Which brings us to our main point—you will need boots. Boots that can stand up to a slushy trek to the subway, boots that will not make your coworkers recoil in horror when you come stomping into the elevator.

Because, admit it—you took out last year’s snow boots, and they looked disgusting. That salt you didn’t entirely wipe off with vinegar last March spent the summer eating through the suede; the faded color of that once perky calfskin will never spring back to leathery life. You need new boots! You need something cheerful, something adorable, something fuzzy or furry, or winter white lace-ups, or sturdy pink shorties.

All are more than equal to meeting the ultimate winter challenge—heading straight for an 8:00 a.m. meeting without having to stop at your desk for a quick change into ballet flats.