We’re all well-versed in the LBD. But for the new season, allow us to introduce you to the LGC. The outerwear OG of autumn/winter 2023 (okay, we’ll stop with the acronyms), the Long Grey Coat has emerged as the most ubiquitous – and sensible – silhouette on the catwalks.
Fashion’s style forecast has encountered some cumulonimbus clouds, but an onslaught of grey doesn’t have to be boring or banal – the smudgy shade of the latest shows reflects a commitment to classical, timeless silhouettes, ready to weather more flitting or fantastical trends. Plus, it’s likely you already have an iteration of the style in your coat collection.
It’s been a season of ageless silhouettes: the black court shoe is covetable again and cigarette pants are the trouser shape of the season. And classic coats – opera or duster, trench or car, brushed mohair or bouclé, tweed or textured velvet – have been unified by a similar taupe-y tone. Prada’s mannish charcoal tailoring, worn with embroidered midi-skirts, looked to what Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons defined as “the stereotypes of outerwear”, elevating everyday shapes with couture-inspired precision.
In recent seasons, Kim Jones has inflected shades of grey with zingy hues, and for autumn/winter 2023, his sharp oversized duster coats drew from the wardrobe of the Roman house’s artistic director for jewellery, Delfina Delettrez. Meanwhile, Gucci’s second interim collection before new creative director Sabato De Sarno takes the helm in September explored both the maximalist and more muted codes of the Florentine house. Cue Wall Street-worthy double-breasted coats paired with heritage horsebit handbags.
It’s no wonder Giorgio Armani experimented with grey tones on his autumn/winter 2023 Emporio Armani runway: he literally invented the colour “greige”. Despite the everyday allure of his brand codes, the opening looks in his collection took the circus and Elizabethan theatrical costume as starting points. An A-line coat in whale grey was affixed with striking single buttons and a fanciful corsage.
Bottega Veneta’s Matthieu Blazy – who for spring/summer 2023 was taken with a “peverse banality” – also looked to the hyperbolic volumes of carnival costume. Amongst marabou trim dresses and densely-fringed tailoring, taupe trench coats were oversized and exaggerated. As Blazy put it: “It was also the question of what is chic: when do we start to be chic? In the morning when we dress?” His customer’s elegance will only increase once they pass by their coat rack.
Other notable experiments in boardroom-ready grey? Alberta Ferretti’s chevron stripe velvet coats (plus eveningwear including strapless gowns imagined in the commuter colour); the sweeping coats and capes at Michael Kors that drew on empowered ’70s silhouettes, and the double-breasted tailoring at Max Mara, which cemented longtime creative director Ian Griffiths as not just the king of camel, but of charcoal, too.
New season style that’s as simple as one, two, three? Think again. Autumn/winter 2023’s standout-yet-sensible silhouette is as easy as LGC.
