This is a power coat. Yes, really. I know it doesn’t look like it. It isn’t cashmere, it isn’t Savile Row-tailored. It isn’t power navy or stealth-wealth camel. It looks like the coat you grab off the rack to walk the dog, not the coat around which you base your new season look. But it is, in fact, the coat those in the know will wear to fashion week.
At its most basic level, the rise of the padded coat is the inevitable climax of a year when fashion has been outplayed by sportswear and athleisure. Trainers have overtaken heels, tracksuit bottoms have usurped trousers, sweatshirts have eclipsed knits. Where the traditional coat takes its cue from the look of the most powerful person in a boardroom or the most glamorous person in a fancy restaurant, this year’s alpha coat channels the manager running things from the sidelines at a football match.
This does not mean that you can rummage for any old tat and call it this season’s new coat. The padded coat you want is, in fact, rather grand. It might be in a bright, lipstick red, say. Or in velvet or silk. And those practical, quilted jackets favoured for their slim silhouette by well-turned-out women in market towns will not do at all, because when I say padded, I mean really padded. You know how smart hotels like to create a sense of abundance with plump pillows stacked so high that if you actually slept on them, you’d have a cricked neck for months? Same with the new padded coat. You need that sense of bounteous indulgence, so make it big, and take the Michelin Man jokes on the chin.
The most important aspect is how you wear it – as if it is a grand coat making a grand entrance. As if you’re walking into the opera in a leopard-printed, silk-lined number. Instead of huddling into it, shrug it back, so the neckline of your outfit underneath is visible. Not very practical, but it has the benefit of a breeze, so you can wear this autumn essential before the mercury drops. This is an image-making coat, not a practical coat, and if it’s keeping you warm, you are wearing it wrong.
• Jess wears jacket, £110, by Topshop Boutique, from topshop.com. Top, £40, frenchconnection.com. Jeans, £225, 7forallmankind.co.uk. Boots, £65, office.co.uk.
Styling: Melanie Wilkinson. Hair and makeup: Laurence Close for Carol Hayes Management.
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