Off Duty section of the Wall Street Journal

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THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
Saturday/Sunday, August 10 - 11, 2013 | D3
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STYLE & FASHION
The Early Bird Catches the Coat
Buying toasty winter outerwear in August might feel wrong, but it’s the smartest way to jump-start your fall wardrobe
Ralph Lauren Collection Black Wool Coat,
$4,998, Ralph Lauren, 212-434-8000
Illustration by Drue Wagner/The Wall Street Journal
Embellished Silk Wool Coat,
$13,140, Prada, 212-334-8888
Rochas Prince of Wales Coat, $4,180,
The Room at Hudson’s Bay, 416-861-6251
BY MEENAL MISTRY
F. Martin Ramin/The Wall Street Journal, Styling by Anne Cardenas (7)
Asymmetric Two-Tone Coat,
$675, Vince, 646-560-2897
Double Face Cashmere Coat, $21,700,
Hermès, 800-441-4488
I HADN’T FOUND my perfect flat
sandals for summer when I started
to think about winter coats. It was
late July. To some, I might sound
like a crazed, Type-A shopper getting way ahead of herself, but the
fact is, even two weeks ago there
were far more capes and crombies
than gladiators and thongs available for purchase. On a 90-plus-degree day, I was able to flip open
my laptop and add to my Net-aPorter wish list a smartly tailored
car coat, a well-priced navy shearling and two dreamy pea coats.
(Apparently I wasn’t quite Type-A
enough; both pea coats were already sold out in a few sizes.)
In the world of high-end retail,
July, August and early September
are—as counterintuitive as it might
seem—the ideal time to buy a coat.
“If customers come in now, they
get to see a full range of sizes,”
said Barbara Atkin, the fashion director of Canadian department
store Holt Renfrew. “You know it’s
going to get cold. This way you
have a better selection.” Ms. Atkin
brings up one of the most important points about shopping early: If
you wait until the mercury drops
enough to call for a woolly topper,
the rack may be picked over. (To
avoid having to mark down bigticket items, stores have learned to
limit their inventory.)
“In December or January, if
you’re hoping to buy things on
sale, there are no more coats,” said
fashion consultant Roopal Patel. “It
is very weird.” Ms. Patel, who has
her eye on a camel coat from Stella
McCartney and a Givenchy biker
jacket, has started getting organized. “Yesterday, I placed a call to
my personal shopper,” she said.
Ms. Patel and I are not alone.
Coats are selling everywhere. Linda
Dresner reported that her namesake boutique in Birmingham,
‘In December or January,
there are no more coats.
It is very weird.’
Mich., has already sold several
from Céline, the Row and Belstaff.
Céline coats are also big sellers at
Barneys, where senior vice president of ready-to-wear Jennifer
Sunwoo said that wintry pieces
from Belstaff, Moncler and Marni
are also selling well. And online retailer MyTheresa—which currently
has one of the best and broadest
online selections of coats—last
week sold two $10,000 minks and a
$77,000 sable, according to buying
director Justin O’Shea.
Beyond the urgency of snagging
your dream coat before someone
else snatches it up, buying a coat
as your first fall piece is also the
most efficient way to establish
your look for the season. “The coat
sets your personality,” said Ms. Patel. “It’s what people notice first in
the cold weather.”
This season offered a broad and
stylish cast of characters, from
Hermès’s modern bourgeois madame (a chestnut cashmere coat
with calfskin and lambskin stripes)
to Prada’s noirish femme fatale
(charcoal wool with glossy sequins). If you’re not looking for
drama, invest in an updated bluechip classic, like Ralph Lauren’s
flared-hem pea coat or Max Mara’s
teddy-bear-ish camel coat.
Those who don’t like thinking
ahead, take heart. The next big
thing bubbling up in the fashion
industry is “buy-now-wear-now”—
which means delivering clothes
when shoppers actually need them.
Ex-Jimmy Choo CEO Tamara Mellon recently launched a mid-priced
label under her own name that
aims to do just that by forgoing
the six-month-prior fashion show
and sending monthly shipments of
season-appropriate merchandise to
her own stores and website.
Until this new model becomes
the norm, you’ll need to get on the
ball. As for me, those wish list
items haven’t entered the shopping
cart yet. But it won’t be long.
Carrara Camel Alpaca and
Mohair Teddy Bear Coat, $3,250,
Max Mara, 212-879-6100
The Row Hunter Green Coat, $2,150,
Saks Fifth Avenue, 212-753-4000
FRESH PICKS
GOLDEN AGE
‘EDITORS ARE ALWAYS fascinated with designing,” said Jennifer Alfano, a writer and
editor who’s covered fashion for the likes of Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue for over 20
years. “We search for the thing we can’t find; then think to ourselves, ‘Maybe I could
fill that hole.’ ” Ms. Alfano created a line of handbags in 2006 that sold well until the
economy turned sour. Now, she’s launched a small collection of jewelry that she hopes
will last: a glamorous and decidedly not-schlocky take on the birthstone pendant.
The pendants are hammered 18k gold discs—about the size of a quarter—set with a
birthstone in the center. They can be hand-engraved with a date on the back. The pendants are made to wear alone, in multiples or layered with other charms. Ms. Alfano
wears her own birthstone pendant on a chain with a monogram-charm from her
mother and a Victorian diamond pendant. She’ll also wear two pendants on separate
chains with her daughters’ stones and dates. “I wanted something sentimental,” she
said. “The idea is that you can get your own birth date, your boyfriend’s, your kids’,
your dog’s.” The pendants and chains are sold on Ms. Alfano’s website, where she’ll
also blog about fashion. “I can’t shut up about fashion,” she said, “I’ve written about it
for so long.” —Megan Buerger
Turquoise (December) and
Ruby (July) Birthstone
Pendants, $1,230 and $1,300,
and Chains, between $900
and $1,500, all available at
jenniferalfano.com
Patrick Dempsey wears
TiTan MiniMal arT.
The icon.
www.silhouette.com | visit us on
available at fine optical retailers worldwide | 1-800-223-0180
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F. Martin Ramin/The Wall Street Journal
A new collection of birthstone pendants turns a novelty
item into a future heirloom