Margot letter
Every October I am too hot in my coat or too cold without it. This is the jacket that ended the argument
Six things the Margot quilted jacket gets right that autumn jackets usually get wrong, from a woman who does not review clothes.
Linda Harrison · Customer · Oxford · 5 min read
Let me be plain about who is talking. I am Linda Harrison, I am 59, I live in Oxford, and I have never in my life sat down to write about a jacket. What I have done is stand at my own front door every October, looking at the sky, trying to decide between the big coat and the thin one, and getting it wrong either way. So this is not a review. It is a woman who thought autumn simply worked like that, saying she was wrong.
The one I am writing about is called the Margot, from Marbury London. I first saw it at the garden centre, on a woman walking round the café with a tray, looking warm and tidy and entirely unbothered, while I stood there with my winter coat over my arm like a sleeping child. When Marbury later asked if they could put my letter up for others to read, I said yes, on the condition I could be completely honest in it.
A quilted jacket, hip length, with a neat lattice stitch and a collar that stands up and buttons. Nothing in that sentence sounds remarkable. Read on.
Here is what a lifetime of autumns taught me. Jackets for this time of year come in two piles. The big pile, proper padded coats that are lovely at the bus stop and unbearable the minute you step inside a shop. And the thin pile, smart little jackets that look right in the hall mirror and give up at the first bit of wind. I had done my years in both, and I had more or less settled for carrying one and shivering in the other.
The Margot is the first jacket I have owned that is neither, and having worn it most days since it arrived, I can tell you it comes down to six things.
Out on the first cold morning. I ordered it expecting to send it back. I did not.
1It is warm without the weight
It is softly padded, so there is real warmth in it on a breezy morning. But it is light. You put it on, and ten minutes later you have forgotten it is there. I can walk round a shop without overheating, and if I do take it off, it weighs next to nothing over my arm. Ask any woman who has carried a winter coat round a supermarket. This is the thing.
2The collar does two jobs
The collar stands up, and it buttons. Leave it open and it sits softly round the neck. Button it when the wind picks up and it does the work of a scarf you did not have to remember. It also frames the face rather nicely, which I did not expect to be writing about a padded jacket.
The stand collar. Open most days, buttoned when the wind gets ideas.
3It goes over a jumper without a fight
Most light jackets are cut for a blouse and nothing more. This one is cut to fall over knitwear, so a proper jumper goes underneath without it pulling across the shoulders or riding up at the back. I can lift my arms to the top shelf. I had forgotten that was something a jacket could allow.
4It stops at the hip
Long enough to cover, short enough that you are not sitting on it. It behaves in a car seat, on a bus, and at a café table, which is exactly where a long coat always lets you down. No bunching, no shutting the hem in the car door.
Buttoned right up when the wind gets ideas.
5The quilting makes it look smart
Padded jackets usually look exactly like what they are. The fine lattice stitch on this one gives it a bit of structure, so it looks considered over tailored trousers and just as right over jeans. Nobody at that garden centre was thinking practical jacket. They were thinking, as I was, where is that from.
6Six colours, and it comes in everyone’s size
Khaki, beige, red, navy, black and light blue. And here is a detail I do not see often enough. The sizes run from a UK 8 right up to a UK 22, the same jacket in every size. I have the khaki, and I am watching the navy closely.
Reaching for the top shelf, jumper underneath. No pulling.
The Margot, against the autumn jackets you have been buying
You can find an autumn jacket for forty pounds anywhere. I know, because the cupboard under my stairs is full of the evidence. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.
Most autumn jackets
Too warm the moment you step indoors
A flat collar that lets the wind straight in
Tight across the shoulders over a jumper
Long enough to sit on
Look exactly like what they are
The Margot
Softly padded, light enough to forget
A stand collar that buttons right up
Cut to layer over knitwear
Stops neatly at the hip
Lattice quilting that looks properly smart
About the price
The Margot is £39.95, down from £100.00, and delivery with Royal Mail is free.
I will tell you that a mark down like that is usually where I start asking what is wrong with something. After all the wearing I have given mine, I have not found it. And if you do, you have 30 days to send it back.
I do not trust perfect scores either, so I read the reviews before I ordered. The same six things I have just walked you through come up in them, over and over, in other women’s words.
And the navy. I went back for it.
If you are standing at your own front door every morning choosing between the big coat and the thin one, this is the jacket I would hand you myself, while your size is still there. Stop dithering and go and look.
Linda Harrison
Margot · Lightweight Quilted Jacket
£100.00£39.95
- Softly padded, light to wear and to carry
- Stand collar that buttons right up
- Cut to layer over a jumper
- Hip length, sits properly when you do
- Neat lattice quilting
- Six colours · sizes UK 8 to UK 22
- Free Royal Mail delivery · 30-day money-back guarantee
Autumn sale on now.
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