This article is taken from the October 2025 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Get five issues for just £25.
The shadows of summer grow longer, heralding autumn, and a chill leavens the air.
To borrow from Tennyson, “in the fall an old man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of warmth” — and not the old, only. For, in truth, none of us really wants to shiver as we thread our way through the City’s thoroughfares, evading Khan’s muggers and Philp’s vigilantes, en route to some safe haven. Yet whilst we may not avoid shivering in fear, we can take precautions against the cold.
Some years ago, I had a new covert coat made up by the House of Commons tailor, Alexandre. In charcoal grey with a velvet collar, it is both sleek and snug. Its design is particularly popular amongst those of a shorter stature as the flat front with buttons hidden leaves the wearer with the illusion of length not supported by their inside leg measurement. Always single breasted and cut above the knee, the covert coat has long been my favourite insulator.
But there are plenty of other topcoat designs with which to fight the battle for comfort. The Chesterfield is a heavier and more formal derivation of the covert and was a staple of the smart wardrobe until the 1960s. Often double breasted and a little longer than a covert, the Chesterfield is ideally suited to a gentleman of the fuller figure: think Adam Boulton rather than Robert Peston.
The Raglan overcoat, on the other hand, is a design to fit all morphologies. The sleeve is cut from neck to armpit affording the wearer much more breadth of movement, and thus helpful to anyone going about London armed with a swordstick (for the purposes of self-defence, naturally). There is no shoulder in a Raglan but there are plenty of pockets for your loose change, bags of boiled sweets and your sonic screwdriver (for those who fear to face not only Mayfair muggers but marauding Daleks).
If the Raglan was designed for the dashing, the Ulster was conceived for the daring, particularly those pursuing the Conan Doyle look. With its elbow-length cape and hard-wearing materials like herringbone tweed, the wearer can go safely sleuthing along The Strand, imagining himself pictured in its eponymous magazine. Whilst it may be rather dated now, derivations of the Ulster, including the Hubertus coat, are not entirely obsolete and were favoured until recently by, amongst others, Lord Hurd of Westwell and the late Prince Philip.
It would be impertinent to discuss overcoats without mentioning the ultimate antidote to winter — the British Warm. Invented, the Crombie historians remind us, by Crombie as a greatcoat for officers on the eve of the First German War, the British Warm remains a cold weather classic.
Made from tough Melton or Mackinaw cloth, the coat is peak-lapelled, double-breasted, leather-buttoned and sometimes belted for maximum protection. In that famous photograph of the Big Three at Yalta, Roosevelt’s Astrakhan-collared cape cloaked him with the insouciance of a dying dandy, but both he and Uncle Joe were eclipsed by Churchill, swathed in taupe, the epauletted epitome of bulldog pugnacity. George Orwell may have coined the term “Cold War”, but Churchill determinedly remained both British and Warm on the sunny side of the Iron Curtain.
Looking the part without feeling the cold is to reach the unreachable star. Beneath the stars on that cold spring night, as the Titanic slowly sank, a middle-aged man’s thoughts likely turned to legend. Realising his situation was perilous, Benjamin Guggenheim famously elected to dress for death. Returning to his stateroom, he removed the sweater and lifebelt the steward had given him and changed back into evening clothes. Whilst the ship’s band played “Songe d’Automne”, Guggenheim emerged on deck, resplendent in white tie, telling his hearers, “We’ve dressed up in our best and are prepared to go down like gentlemen.” His valet, Victor Giglio, stood beside his master carrying his overcoat.
