Top Coat

The coat - the socially acceptable way of keeping ones blanket round them to brave the cold.  I've flirted with the idea before but it never really stuck.  After a long term love affair with the jacket - leather, blazer, shearling, whatever - I had a fling with the ever-effortless parka.  I thought this was a perfectly good compromise but was informed that a coat really does have to keep you warm to earn its name.  Then last year, I was truly unfaithful with my first coat in years.  Thick black wool, the perfect length, an incredible cut and sumptuous leather sleeves.  'Mixed media' as fashion peeps called it.  That was it.  I knew this was to be an affair to remember.

So this year, as Autumn beckons, I envisage London in all its crisp, cold splendour, the golden, khaki, russet leaves on the ground (my fantasies never acknowledge the existence of rain) and me pounding the pavements hopefully in a great pair of ankle boots and opaques, and undoubtedly enveloped in a fabulous coat.  And I'm thinking I'm going to go military.  Something that shouts authority and demands 'atten-TION'.  Whilst I wait for my dream coat from Topshop Unique to drop online, I've pondered over the following army of outerwear.

All Saints

ASOS

Jack Wills

ASOS

French Connection

ASOS

The Kooples

ASOS

Urban Outfitters

Reiss

Whistles

Zara