New kinds of coat only come around every five years or so – this one will keep you cosy while adding a minimal sleekness to your look

Before we get any deeper into autumn, I need to tell you that this year we have a New Coat. This doesn’t happen very often. I mean, every year shops make out that the coats they are flogging this season are radically different from the coats they were flogging this time last year, for obvious coat-flogging-related reasons. But most years the coats are, in fact, pretty much the same as last year’s, except perhaps in a different colour, or a bit shorter or longer, or fluffier.

Which is why I am quite beside myself with excitement about the scarf coat. Because only about twice a decade does a genuinely new kind of coat come along. Five years ago, we had the rise of the puffer jacket. About five years before that, the trenchcoat, which had played a supporting role in style for a century, suddenly took on main character energy in our shop windows and wardrobes.