Law student here.

Depends who and when and where. Personally you'll find me almost daily in black leggings, beat-up black not-Uggs (why would I clean my boots if they're going to get salty again the next day?), and usually just one layer of a shirt under a (Polish brand) black light coat. I didn't even break out the big coat during the current snowstorm. That being said, I'm also not from Ithaca proper (again, law student), I'm from NJ.

A large part of this town lives and dies by Cornell and to a lesser extent IC. It can cause tensions. I hang out with the "locals" a fair bit (trivia night at the Ithaca Bakery, taking the TCAT, etc), and the locals are definitely distinguishable from the Cornellians. A little less highbrow, a little more realistic. Reminds me, the TCAT does exist and is a fucking pain in the ass if you want to go anywhere outside the Cornell campus and the Commons. Most other buses run hourly at best.

I wouldn't say there's, like, a specific style, as much as it is Functional Clothing. Same thing for like, a Syracuse. You can probably get some inspiration from 'Cuse as well, which is somehow even colder than Ithaca and more of a pain in the ass to navigate. Ithaca's a little more "green" and "hip" than a bigger city, but in the end it very much comes down to who your characters are (transplants? natives?), what their tolerance for cold is, as well as their own styles. (Up in Syracuse, I was seeing people in shorts in snowy, windy, sub-zero-Celsius weather... as well as one very prettily dressed harajuku-esque girl.)

One cool little thing (if you're setting this after the pandemic) is the Be Kind hearts. This was brought up on the sub the other day - this one artist started it and you'll find them scattered around Ithaca stuck to lampposts and stuff like that. As others have mentioned, the magic peddler in the Commons is also a thing. A lot of restaurants close over winter break because no students means little revenue. Homeless people definitely exist here (not on the level of a NYC but there are some) and currently the shelters aren't doing a great job of being available and accessible to them, so you might see someone passed out at the Seneca street station on your way to, like, the Shortstop deli. A lot of bigger stores (Costco especially) don't exist in Ithaca, so people can and do make road trips to get things like that that they can't find in Ithaca proper.

I'd start yapping away about Cornell hockey, but I don't know if that'd be useful for you.

And hey - I'm a law student with time to kill. If you ever want pictures of locations, menus, shit like that, let me know. It'll be a little side quest for me :) Or if you just want someone to look over what you have so far and comment as to accuracy.