Confessions of a coat addict

Autmn. The season when coat fans rejoice. Plus my (highly subjective) edit of the best new ones on the high street

I love a coat! Left to right: Isabel Marant, Ilsa Jacobsen, Shrimps, Boden

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Autumn is back with a vengeance. In Edinburgh, at least. (Just one of the many reasons I’m happy to live here.) Summer doesn’t suit me. Too ginger, too pasty, too freckly ('look how brown you are, your freckles have all joined up!') and now too sweaty.

This morning, for the first time in months, our Lumie alarm clock (Opens in a new window) lit up before the light crept round the blinds. (PSA: this is the best thing we’ve bought since we moved up here bar none. The light starts to warm up 45 mins before you want to get out of bed and wakes you up naturally. If you come over all SAD in winter and have trouble dragging yourself out of bed, I highly recommend it.) Sausage the cat, who is typically alternating between batting my nose, chewing my hair and kicking stuff off any available surface by 6am, hunkered down between the pillows and languidly gave us the paw. And, yes, I have cracked and put the heating on. Very low. (And, inevitably, with immaculate timing, this morning I got a letter from the gas supplier, announcing the bill is going to increase by at least £800. Ah joy. (So, no new coat for me this year then...) 

But I still love pretty much everything about Autumn. 

 I would happily live in a country that only has autumn (and TBF Scotland isnt that far off.) I love leaves (even soggy ones), and the way they’re starting to ditch their showy luminous green in favour of a more subtle burnished orange. I  prefer walking along a beach in autumn, give me a chill wind and woollies and piping hot coffee over bikinis and lollies and 80 degrees any day. Controversially I even love long, dark evenings. I love winter drinks, I'll have mulled wine, you keep your aperol spritz. And I love woolly socks and (fake) furry slippers. I sound like someone’s granny, don’t I? Which, I am stunned to realise, I am. (And if you’re thinking, hang on, she doesn’t have any children. You're right, I don’t, biologically, but I do have a very longtime stepson and am both grandsam and godmother to his daughter. More on that another time, if you’re interested.) Or like I live in a Richard Curtis movie, which only the 1% do. (And hang on, even that’s fashionable now, too. According to TikTok, harassed middle aged British women bundled in too many layers (Opens in a new window) are almost as cool as coastal grandmas. 👀)

But most of all, I love autumn clothes. And that’s because it’s 90% coats and boots, (and the remaining six inches is trousers/jeans).