Living in Seattle and doing a fair bit of traveling to even colder climates means that I can justify a fairly extensive coat capsule. As a result, I have many coats that vary in weight, length, fabric, silhouette, colour and level of dressiness. Plus, I adore coats, so it’s fun to add to my collection. 

I’ve been looking for a knee-length, single-breasted, tomato red coat with clean lines and black buttons for years. But nothing was quite right. Season after season, styles were either too short, too boxy, too lightweight, over-designed, double-breasted, ill-fitting, poorly made, or just the wrong shade of red. 

This year I unexpectedly found my coat at J. Crew (it’s the Double Cloth Metro Coat in flame). I’m in a very lady-like-style-mood lately so the simple classic lines, small collar, and flaps on the welted pockets appealed to me right away. And of course, the colour launches me into orbit. Scanning designer coat racks at Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom and Barneys made me realize that the workmanship on this coat puts quite a few of their thousand dollar coats to shame. So far, I am very impressed with the quality of this coat, especially for the price. I hope that it stays looking good for many seasons.

I’m all over the midi coat trend, so ideally I’d have preferred this coat to cover my knees. But the length will suffice and the colour was impossible to resist. This type of red is my virtual neutral and I wear it with just about everything. From jeans and trousers, to skirts, tweed shorts and dresses across a spectrum of colours. I want to wear this coat every day because it brings my older items to life.

Despite the superhero connotations, I like matching bright red with a bright blue like cobalt or turquoise. So I’m wearing an old blue dress here. Unfortunately, it has seen better days. The colour has faded and the silhouette has stretched out a little. I no longer feel my best when wearing it, and even Greg commented that it doesn’t look fabulous anymore. I’ve given my sad blue frock a few more whirls with my happy red coat so that it can retire with a bang. It was a pricey frock, but I have worn the heck out of it and am not sad to see it go.

The rest of the outfit is as classic as the coat. A black and cream scarf that matches a colourblocked bag, and very low heeled black patent boots. The boots are about 5 years old and completely weatherproof. Some will argue that the pointy toe looks dated, but to my eye they are still in style. Furthermore, it’s going to take more than a new trend for me to stop wearing those boots because they are insanely comfortable, AND they slim at the ankle. Both tall orders for my fussy feet and narrow ankles. Unlike, my sad blue dress, I’ll probably wear these boots until they fall apart.