This Fall Is All About the Main Character Coat
The biggest trend this fall is being swallowed whole—or at least looking like your coat could do that to you.
We’re entering an interesting era in fashion, one that feels less fantastical and over the top. Qu**t l**ury is a term that has become inescapable. One day people are joking about the end of times, and the very next, they’re dressing like they’d have the means to escape to the moon if necessary. The best thing to come out of this aesthetic shift, though, is without a doubt the ravishing coats.
Yes, people have embraced the idea of owning a classic wardrobe—a more simplified way of getting dressed. But they’re wrapping all of those uniform layers in a coat large enough to make them look like an Olsen twin from afar. It’s as though the outerwear of today is begging us to tell a story, even if we insist on wearing clothes that whisper. That’s what makes an extra coat so hot: It turns you into a main character instantly. It’ll turn on the sounds of Bauhaus in your brain as you slink through alleyways, the long fabric of your coat trailing you like a slither of smoke, using your (ideally gloved) hands to grasp your lapels as if you’ve got a secret to hide.
Below, the four biggest “sexy main character” coat trends of the season.
A Fellini-Approved Tango of Tweed
If there were a singular protagonist in the coat universe, it would be a Chanel tweed, a coat that has become a signifier not just of literal luxury but also of the pleasures of a life well lived. To own one, for many, is to have made it. Typically, these coats are thought of in their popular blazer form, but last season Virginie Viard gave us bigger versions that prove tweed is as tantalizing as ever, especially when worn with a matching knit skirt suit and a pair of knockout knee-high boots. It’s the type of coat Romy Schneider would have worn with all of her Chanel in a Federico Fellini film in the ’60s, the type of coat that oozes the allure of old Hollywood glamor.
The “Literally Me” Jacket
After Miu Miu’s Fall 2024 show, audience members and Mrs. Prada fangirls were screaming “LITERALLY ME!” at her models, who wore hoodies under large-lapeled coats with oversize leather bags nestled in the crooks of their elbows. The coats looked like the stuff of bodega-run dreams, the kind of thing you could throw on over a pair of your boyfriend’s boxers (or, in Miu Miu’s universe, sequined panties) to achieve a strange and special mix of don’t-give-a-shit elegance. These coats look best when worn with attitude, and with a slightly messy mingle of clothing you’d normally be too worried about wearing out in public.
The Funky Puffer
Puffer coats have never been considered especially hot. They also don’t give off main character energy. If anything, they probably remind you of your mother, begging you to wear one to school on a day you insisted wasn’t that cold. But in recent years, puffer coats have gotten funky and weird and whimsical. Downtown New York favorite Sandy Liang has been leading this puffer coat revolution for years now, with shearling sleeves and bow details that make the silhouette something you’d want to wear for fun, not simply out of necessity. They’re no longer the extras of coats, but the kind of coat you wear if you want to be extra.
The Slinky Curtain Coat
At Saint Laurent, Anthony Vaccarello has been making the kind of power coats that actually feel powerful. The lengthy leather trenches sometimes come draped like a curtain, hanging off of one shoulder with the ease of a pageant sash. They remind me of those videos on TikTok where people show off their big dogs that allow them to “walk home at night alone.” These are like the Dobermans of coats: hot and a little scary—the kind of thing you’d imagine seeing on a villainous vixen who, deep down, you wish would taunt you.
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