Iam calling this look Gaucho’s Moll. Argentinian romantic rebel meets Rosie Huntington-Whiteley rocking cashmere at LAX. The blanket coat was set fair to lord it at the pinnacle of this season’s fashion trends from the moment Christopher Bailey draped every model in the Burberry show in checked and monogrammed blankets for the show’s finale at London fashion week. By the time Cara, Jourdan and the rest had sashayed to the end of the catwalk, 500 Christmas lists had been silently written and prayers sent to Santa. Pretty impressive, as it was February.
The appeal of the blanket coat is not difficult to pinpoint. Not since the onesie has a fashion item so blatantly riffed on our desire to stay indoors – flickering fire, palms around a hot drink – until the clocks go forward again. But the campfire-cosiness which gives the blanket coat its appeal is also what makes it an unexpectedly challenging look to pull off. If you are a supermodel and have been in hair and makeup for two hours, you can wear it over handkerchief-hem silk skirts and look traffic-stoppingly glamorous. But for most of us, there is the very real danger that people will think you are escaping a house fire.
So if you want to wear a blanket coat – and you do, of course you do, so cosy – you need to smarten it up. This doesn’t mean wearing it over a trousersuit, or an evening gown. That’s too much of a stretch, and will only exacerbate the potential emergency-evacuee effect. It means wearing it over clothes which have down-to-earth ruggedness, but a bit of snap. Smart jeans, not ripped ones. Leather boots, for that I’m-with-the-cavalry attitude. A white shirt: simple enough not to look out of place, but sufficiently purposeful to make it clear this is not a campfire situation.
And then we come to accessories. Street style star types belt their blanket coats, but I can’t be doing with this, because the belt raises the question of where you are going to put it when you take your coat off, making the outfit feel fussy and contrived. A hat is a good call. A blanket and an umbrella, I think we can agree, is not a great look. Also, gauchos wear hats. And so does Rosie.
• Jess wears blanket wrap, £149, zara.com. Shirt, £225, by Victoria Beckham, from fenwick.co.uk. Jeans, £95, whistles.co.uk. Boots, £295, reiss.co.uk
Stylist: Melanie Wilkinson. Hair and makeup: Laurence Close.
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