Ultimate Closet Essentials | Outerwear

When you live in a cold climate, outerwear is important: in fact, there are times when it’s the only part of my outfit anyone sees, so I place quite a lot of importance on it, and ended up with a fairly large selection of outerwear essentials. As you can see, however, most of my selection is geared towards the colder months of the year: it’s rarely very warm in the UK, but when it is, I tend to go for a cardigan rather than a jacket or coat, so I don’t find I need too much in the way of warm weather cover-ups. I selected…

green coat // camel jacket  // trench coat  // jersey blazer

A full-length wool coat

Ideally, I’d choose two full-length coats: one in a neutral colour which will work with everything, and one in a statement shade. In a bid to minimise the number of items, however, I’ve gone with my “statement” coat, in a lovely emerald green: as I mentioned in my ‘How to Build a Capsule Wardrobe‘ post, green is a colour which works almost as a neutral for me, so this would still work with a lot of my wardrobe (especially as it’s long, and would cover most of what was underneath it anyway). For those items that wouldn’t work with this coat, however, I’d be able to fall back on…

A short wool jacket with a nipped-in waist

I wear a lot of midi-length skirts and dresses and that length can look awkward with a full-length coat. I also find that the full skirts I prefer can look frumpy without something fitted on top, which is why my ultimate capsule wardrobe would have to contain a short-but-warm jacket, with a fitted shape which defines the waist. For this one, I’ve gone for my chosen neutral, which is camel: many people tend to go for black when it comes to outerwear, but it’s very harsh against my pale complexion, and I don’t like the way it looks with navy, and other very dark shades, whereas camel works with just about everything, and is a little more flattering.

 A classic trench coat

I have a selection of trench coats, in a range of colours, but you can’t go wrong with a classic beige trench: I wear these constantly every spring!

 A jersey blazer

The dressier equivalent of the denim jacket, I wasn’t sure whether to go with black or white for this one. Either would work (and to be honest, this is an item that falls into the “you can never have too many” category for me), but I settled for white in the end, purely because light colours are more flattering on me than dark ones. I wear these with jeans and over dresses, and always go for a jersey or ponte fabric if possible: they’re comfortable, don’t crease too much, and are warm enough to be a smarter alternative to a cardigan.