The Wrong Coat? You’re bang on trend my friend

Forget the wrong trousers, this season you need the wrong coat to be truly fashionable. Fleur Britten brings us up to speed on the style mismatching that has become so very right for now...

Model on the runway at the Gucci Spring 2024 Ready To Wear Fashion Show on September 22, 2023 in Milan, Italy. (WWD via Getty)

It’s usually at this time of year that the major-league fashion designers gleefully rub their hands together in anticipation of the small fortunes we’re expected to drop in order to get our hands on the hallowed New Season’s Coat, and thereby ensure that we are – phew – on-trend. This winter, you’ll be delighted to hear, is set to be different, given that the style bible Vogue has declared “The Wrong Coat” to be the height of fashion.

The Wrong Coat look means, simply, that we can suspend our usual critique when in front of the mirror, because “wrong” – as in, “this doesn’t go with this” – is exactly the goal this season. It’s about ignoring your fashion instincts, which would normally say, for example, that a love-worn country gentleman’s jacket should never be worn over a chiffon pencil skirt and blouse – Prada, no less, decreed this very idea a key “lewk” on its latest catwalk.

Likewise, while previously it was absolutely not the done thing to wear a maxi trench coat with short-shorts (flasher vibes), Dries van Noten overturned this rule for its new collection. Heavy parkas teamed with delicate silk slip dresses? Bring it on, says Gucci. The sheerest organza dresses coupled with dense wool coats? Why ever not, says Altuzarra.

Winter coat in the summer? Why ever not, Rihanna? (GC)

Happily, then, the Wrong Coat trend is all about ripping up the usual fashion diktats about how we’re supposed to do outerwear – all those rules around harmonising textures, matching one’s hemlines and balancing proportions are out this season. The result is something altogether less predictable, more personal – and, well, fun.

The Wrong Coat look comes hot on the heels of the “wrong shoe” trend, originally identified by the American stylist Allison Bornstein. “In working with clients and breaking down the style of our favourite celebrities, I realised what makes a look feel interesting and personal is the addition of accessories that feel slightly ‘off’ or mismatched with the vibe of the rest of the look,” she explained.

Obviously, Lily Allen was there first, with trainers and ballgowns; but also think flip-flops with suits, sliders (and socks, of course) with tailored trousers, and ballet flats with occasionwear, when heels would be the more obvious choice. Going against your first instinct, explains Bornstein, “forces you to mix it up and try something that might totally blow your mind and change the entire look”.

Arguably the best thing about the wrong coat trend is that, as Bornstein points out, “It doesn’t require you to buy a single thing – it’s about using what you have in your wardrobe in a new way.”

Shorts? Tick. Winter coat? Tick. Grece Ghanem shows it’s all about the mismatch this season (Alamy)

Who needs to drop four figures on Prada’s unfinished rustic shacket, say, when your old Barbour will achieve the same effect? Nor do you need to invest in matchy-matchy palettes this season, or ensure that your skirt hemline is perfectly aligned to that of your coat, or coordinate luxury with luxury. Finally, we can break free and wear whatever is pleasing – and available – to us. Besides, says the fashion stylist Mary Fellowes, “Most winter coats don’t date, so there’s just no need to rush out for yet another one this season.”

What’s also brilliant about this trend, says Clare Press, host of the Wardrobe Crisis podcast, is that “it’s just so easy as a way of introducing novelty and looking up-to-date. Simply sling on a jacket that doesn’t go with your outfit, et voila – you’re now cutting-edge. Wear your anorak to the office Christmas party, borrow your partner’s lumpy tweed overcoat, rescue that ski jacket out the loft.”

The celebrities clearly got the memo. When Gigi Hadid stepped out in her black cycling shorts and workout top, she knew she should go for a clashing, hi-lo vibe by mismatching with an old luxe woollen coat in block colours by Ports 1961, with hemlines and legs all over the place. Similarly, Hailey Bieber, seen out in her full-length camel trench and mini-shorts, fully ran with the technically wrong idea that, when viewed from behind, she might look like she wasn’t wearing anything beneath her coat.

The look is “unapologetic”, says Fellowes. “Make the coat the centre point of your outfit.” Think ugly coats (hello, Rihanna in her floor-length shearling aviator jacket by The Mannei), clashing coats (as worn by the “queenage” fashion influencer Grece Ghanem, evidently unfussed by her discordant pinks on show), and coats that look like they’ve been nicked off housemates (oh hi, Emily Ratajkowski in her oversized boyfriend coat with oversized boyfriend trousers on the streets of New York recently) – all so wrong, and therefore all so right this season.

But this being fashion, there must still be some rules, surely? Not according to the stylist and founder of vintage fashion brand Chillie London, Natalie Hartley. “Ultimately, we need to get over that idea that we have to obey someone else’s fashion rules. Dress for yourself, be comfortable, be happy, and wear something that you love. Who cares?” What could possibly go wrong?