Throw on a cape: the new way to cover up your arms
DON’T you just love a cape? Or maybe not. Possibly you don’t much care for them, or you’ve never thought to try one, or, like me, you once owned a cape — a black regulation school uniform one back in the mid-Seventies — and you’ve failed to see the attraction since.
However, it’s a new year and the time has come, according to frontline fashion designers, to give capes a whirl, if you haven’t already.
Capes of all kinds have been creeping up on us the past few months. The cape coat was a feature of several 2019 autumn catwalks, notably the classic camel one at Celine, with its fat collar and single-chain clasp.
Last year, there were capeshouldered evening gowns everywhere on the red carpet, and Melania Trump chose a yellow Valentino cape coat for the First Couple’s visit to London in December.
Heading into spring, the cape is still going strong. Nicolas Ghesquiere popped sequin and beaded cropped capes on top of everything from blazers and skirts to satin trousers in the Louis Vuitton Resort 2020 show. There were Prince-ofWales-check cape coats on Gucci’s spring catwalk, and Hedi Slimane at Celine produced a checked tweed cape for women and, to be fair, an embroidered one for men.
CAPES are a tricky trend, but worth it, even if only for the change, and a cape coat (which is what we’re talking about here) has a swagger about it that you can’t quite get with a regular jacket.
It’s not in the ‘must-have’ bracket just yet, but it has firmly arrived in the ‘worth a try’ zone.
If you need inspiration, Kate Moss is an early adopter and this time last year was pictured in Paris wearing a shinybuttoned, priestly black cape coat in which she looked extremely chic. (Note: Kate has several capes — at least five that we know of — in different fabrics and lengths, but all of them are black.)
A cape, by the way, no longer has to be a shoulder-draped tent of the sort favoured by Dracula. A cape can have slits for arms or sleeves; it can be short or long; it can wrap across your shoulder; it can even have buttons or a bow necktie. But since the main advantage of a cape coat is that you can sling it on over anything, including a jacket, the one you’ll get the most wear out of is the single-clasp — or no clasp at all — belowthe-knee, classic wool cape.
Traditional capes are shruggable, and shruggable is cool and works with everything in your wardrobe, from jeans to long sequin dresses.
The cropped cape could prove to be as useful an upper-arm cover-up as the shrug once was — and far more glamorous.
One that gets top marks for elegance and wearability is the Pinko navy, below-the-knee version with gold buttons (€248, pinko.com); it’s a new take on the blazer. Cos does a smart, wool-mix, hooded cape in grey (€69, cosstores.com), and slightly more casual, but super-easy thanks to the funnel collar, is & Other Stories’ midthigh-length, camel, wool-blend design (€104, stories.com).
Marks & Spencer did a great Indigo Collection cape coat with a suggestion of military detail around the collar, and wrap cape with faux fur collar. Both have sold out, but keep an eye on M&S for spring.
A slightly fancier option is Zara’s tiered cape (€77, zara.
com), more highwayman in spirit, which could look chic provided you wear it with plain black trousers.
Alternatively, Zara does plain, mid-thigh capes in black and beige which fasten at the neck (€49.99, zara.com).
If you want a parka substitute, Joules does a reversible cape in khaki and dark blue plaid with a faux fur trim (€147,
joules.com). It’s a little on the short side, but cute and country-weekend friendly.
At the relaxed end of the spectrum are capes that think they are shawls (such as Warehouse’s checked version, €19), good if you are going for all-out winter white with a polo-neck and trousers.
But I can’t help feeling that, if you’re going to buy a cape, you might as well get one with substance and swagger and wear it with pride.