This week I’m wearing… a quilted jacket

This week I’m wearing… a quilted jacket

I haven’t yet decided whether it makes life easier or more difficult that clothes that used to have nothing to do with fashion, which used to exist in spite of fashion, are suddenly its very beating heart.

Take what I like to call the walking coat, for example. It might be a down jacket, like this one, or it might be hard-shell. But its original raison d’être was a simple one, to keep you warm and dry while out walking on a day that was neither.

I have always had one in my non-fashion arsenal, and it has always made me feel two things at once: happiness at its practicality and the hills and clifftops it allows me to deal with; concern that it makes me look like an Alan Bennett day-tripper and that, if anyone should see me in it, my life as a fashion director would be over. Now there is a third possibility: that I might feel achingly hip, especially should I wear my coat off the shoulder – which, admittedly, rather defeats the whole point.

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Anna Murphy wears jacket, £79, Urban Outfitters (urbanoutfitters.com), knit, £475, Isabel Marant, and trousers, £420, Jil Sander (both matchesfashion.com), and earrings, £230 , Marni (marni.com)OLIVIA BEASLEY

Still, that’s how these coats came styled at Balenciaga this season, in the first collection by fashion bad-boy Demna Gvasalia. Is it just a massive joke that one of Paris’s most elevated brands has turned its hand to the kind of coat that was previously the preserve of John Noakes? And if so, who is the joke on? That the price tag is £1,615 (balenciaga.com) might perhaps provide you with an answer.

With his haute hiking gear and hoodies, Gvasalia is certainly pushing luxury fashion’s limits. It’s indicative of just how boundaried the different worlds of clothes continue to be that a coat that keeps Middle England snug while walking the dog should seem directional when tweaked a bit and put on the Paris catwalk.

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From left: Heidi Klum; fashion editor Julia Sarr-Jamois; model Karlie KlossREX FEATURES

The good news in all of this is that townies like me can abandon that ridiculous practice of saving our coat that actually does what a coat is supposed to do for the countryside, and wearing it in the city. If you live in the country, on the other hand, you can rest assured that you are now making a fashion statement every time you leave your front door.

Where to buy? Moncler has been producing superior down jackets since for ever ago, so much so that it’s difficult to pin down which is the most fabulous. I’m torn between the midnight Alexis, with its jewelled collar, and the dusky grey cape-style Akylina (£965 and £595; moncler.com). Similarly high-end is Belstaff’s black shearling-trimmed Baronet (£950; belstaff.co.uk). At a lower price point, there’s Zara’s white funnel-necked style (£59.99; zara.com) or Mango’s Balenciaga-ish red one (£79.99; mango.com).

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£150, Warehouse (warehouse.co.uk)

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