Fashion month might be the birthplace of street style inspiration, but if you really want to know how a specific city's population dresses then it's best to visit out of 'show season'. I did just this over the weekend with a short visit to Copenhagen.
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The Danish capital has long been thought of as one of the world's best-dressed cities and my four days there all but confirmed this. I loved seeing how dresses were worn over trousers in a fashion that was as much of a styling hack as it was adapting to the city's great bicycle routes, or the way that mothers and babies matched bonnets and how sunglasses with coloured lenses still prove most popular.
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But if there was one singular item that proved most popular for the city's stylish women on the bitingly cold, brilliantly sunny weekend then it was a faux-fur coat. I noticed them being worn by girls on a Saturday shopping spree, women enjoying fine dining at the Nimb Brasserie and countless others who found pockets of sunshine to sip natural wine along the city's canals.
Yet, it was less about the coat itself and more the way that they wore them that turned my head more than once. The styles were majority long and oversized, cocooning the wearer like a teddy bear hug. Where you'd perhaps think of pairing the voluminous throwover with sleeker pieces, the Scandi girls instead kept things loose and fancy free. Baggy jeans with trainers was the most popular pairing, which drew out a more languid feel to the otherwise glamorous jackets.
Outside of Copenhagen, faux fur coats have found themselves back in the spotlight once again, after being the subject of a surprise resurgence at the AW25 shows. While the industry at large has moved beyond using real animal skins, faux fur so frequently included in the collections - from Miu Miu to Simone Rocha - came highly unanticipated. Critics argued that the presence of faux fur still centres the real stuff in the fashion conversation, while others showing faux did so in an effort to prove the realism of alternatives and therefore the redundancy of animal skins. This is just the start of a conversation that will long unfurl into next autumn.
For some, this will be a trend to sit out, while others will carry it forward for many years to come.
Zara Long Faux Fur Coat
Valentino Garavani Faux-Fur Oversized Coat
H&M Fluffy Maxi Coat
& Other Stories Belted Faux Fur Coat
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