'September fashion is about tailoring, or new hemlines, or zingy colours. The sleeveless coat is the perfect first autumn buy'
You know that feeling, when you get back from holiday? When you unlock the front door and the telly's still there (haven't been burgled, phew), your keys make that same clatter when you drop them on the hall shelf and you put the kettle on? While you're waiting for that first proper cup of tea in a fortnight, you start watering the plants, some of which seem to be as close to thriving as they were before you left, and in a calm, quiet kind of a way you feel quite at peace with the holiday being over?
By the end of summer we have gorged on ice-cream pastels, worn our denim threadbare; we have bottomed out our obsession with flat sandals that are rope-soled, ethnic-beaded and/or gladiator-strapped. In short, we are ready to start dressing like grown-ups again. September, when the magazines are fat and tempting, and the air crackles with post-holiday good intentions, is the season of renewal. A bit like Easter, but with less chocolate, what with some of us having gorged on actual ice-cream as well as the pastels.
September fashion is about tailoring, or new hemlines, or zingy new colours. This year, the sleeveless coat is the perfect first autumn buy. (Eagle-eyed catwalk spotters will have noted the look on the Prada catwalk a full year earlier, but it was at the catwalk shows for the current season that the look took off, notably at Victoria Beckham's show.) But crucially, what with us being barely unpacked from hols, it doesn't entirely cover you up. On the catwalk, Beckham's sleeveless coats were worn over trousers and smooth, second-skin polo-neck sweaters, but when Beckham herself was first photographed in the look, stepping off a plane in Beijing, she wore it with trousers and a shell top, with toned, tanned arms.
The sleeveless coat is a new-season top layer you can wear now, with layers for warmth to be added later. What's more, as an I'm-not-on-the-beach-no-more memorandum to self, it will kick your look into gear. In the chess game of fashion, it is a classic opener: bold and eye-catching, but tactically sensible. Because silly season is over.
• Jess wears coat, £625, by Alexander McQueen, and trousers, £355, by 3.1 Phillip Lim, both harrods.com. Courts, £55, office.co.uk.
Styling: Melanie Wilkinson. Hair and makeup: Sharon Ive at Carol Hayes Management.