Shoeper Style | River Island faux-fur collar biker jackets

Biker jackets by River Island:

River Island biker jackets, £65

I really want a biker jacket.

I’ve actually wanted one for a while now, but as autumn approaches, and I start to reluctantly think about cold-weather clothing, biker jackets have started to make their way to the top of my wish list. They’re perhaps a little bit of a departure from my usual style, but I really like the mix of tough/girlie they allow you to create with an outfit, and I also see them as the solution to a constant winter conundrum of mine: namely, what kind of outerwear to wear with midi dresses/skirts?

Because so much of my wardrobe revolves around full skirts and midi lengths, this is an issue I come up against every winter – and some summers, too, actually. I’m not much of a fan of ankle-length coats, which I find cumbersome and uncomfortable (as well as making me feel a bit like I’m an extra in a Victorian costume drama), but midi length skirts can look a little bit frumpy hanging out the bottom of a shorter coat, and a full skirt trapped under a straight-fit coat isn’t a great look either. So what’s a cold shoeperhero to do?

The best answer I’ve found to the outerwear issue is short, fitted jackets. I have a couple of these in thick, wool fabrics, and wear them frequently – as long as I’m wearing thick enough tights or boots, they’re just as warm as a longer coat, but they look much better with a full skirt, allowing the silhouette to remain more-or-less the same as it would without a coat. The problem is that this type of jacket can be quite hard to find: in order for it to work, the cut needs to be fairly cropped and fitted at the waist, and with fashion favouring loose, boxy fits at the moment, finding something like that can be a challenge.

Hence the current obsession with biker jackets. These fulfill all of my requirements for wearing with full skirts: they’re short, they’re fitted, they don’t interrupt the silhouette of the outfit… They’re also warm, durable, and work really well with lots of other looks, too: jeans/leggings are the obvious ones, but I also love biker jackets with pencil skirts, and other more traditionally “ladylike” pieces. Oh, and unlike most winter coats, they’re the kind of thing you can wear year-round, thus making your investment work even harder.

River Island’s selection of biker jackets is amazing this season, and I’ve already added these faux-fur collared biker jackets to my wish list – in pretty much every colour available! Sadly, the bottle green version, which is my favourite, is already out of stock in my size, so it’s now a toss-up between the black and tan, both of which would work really well with my wardrobe. As you’ve probably guessed from the price, these are faux-leather and faux-fur, and although it’s not stated in the product description, the fact that they’ve shown some of the jackets both with and without the collar makes me think it’s a removable one. I really hope so: I love the look of the jackets with the dramatic collars, but I’d want the option to remove them for cooler days, too.

Because biker jackets look good with a variety of different looks, here are a couple of outfits I’ve styled with these:

How to style biker jackets: midi skirt and tall boots

♥  Closet skirt  ♥  Nadia Tarr turtleneck   ♥  Sam Edleman boots  ♥ Alberta Ferretti bag

How to style biker jackets: jeans and sweater

♥  Express jeans   ♥ Jade’s sweater  ♥  Michael Kors bag ♥  Bank Fashion sunglasses  ♥  Charlotte Russe watch