What Fall Jacket Is Everyone Wearing This Year?

Under $250

J.Crew introduced the Barn Jacket (designed by Sid Mashburn) in 1986 — and for its 40th anniversary this year, launched a campaign starring Spike Lee, Robby Hoffman, and Leandra Medine Cohen. There’s every style of Barn Jacket now — in suede, a wool blend, faux shearling, etc. Hannah Selinger, author of Valley of the Moms and Cellar Rat: My Life in the Restaurant Underbelly, recently went for the women’s 1986 Barn Jacket that approximates the catalogue original. Selinger would know: She used to own a Barn Jacket in the ’90s and says her new one “feels very true to the original. It’s not waxed like a Barbour, but it’s sturdy and heavy enough to stand in for a winter coat if it’s, like, 40 degrees out and I’m in a sweater.” She sized up in it (from her usual XS to a S), making it “baggy in a very ’90s kind of way.”

Set designer Alexandra Massillon isn’t worried about the next torrential downpour — in no small part thanks to her Patagonia Torrentshell. “It makes me want to be outside when it rains now. I literally feel invincible because the water beads off,” Massillon says. Even if there’s a small chance of rain, she’ll roll it up into her tote “just in case.”

Nearly every day last fall, Rebecca Firkser, author of the cookbook Galette!: Sweet and Savory Recipes As Easy As Pie, wore this Eileen Fisher nylon coat “with a vest or thick sweater underneath.” While it’s not waterproof for a downpour, she says it’s “great protection for light fall drizzle and breeze.” She got it in a couple sizes larger than usual to ensure that it was perfectly oversized, and she’s packed it for various trips where it hasn’t gotten too wrinkled en route. (“I can steam it in 35 seconds if I feel it really needs it,” she says).

“I think the large red tulips sewn onto the sides immediately make people smile,” says Jess Focht, a social-media specialist at Paperless Post. “It’s more of a daytime jacket; think an ideal fall Saturday in Manhattan that’s very When Harry Met Sally.”

“The day I got the jacket — at my friend’s (sadly now closed) clothing shop, Daughters — I felt a power in this structured beauty. I put it on in the shop, and for the rest of the day I felt like, Wow, I needed this jacket,” says Zoë Sessums, who writes the newsletter Archive of Everything. It reminds her of a blazer thanks to the slimmer, more fitted silhouette. “I can’t pair it with very thick layers underneath, so it’s ideal for those early fall days when the sun is a perfect counterbalance to the cooler air,” she says.

Sable Yong, author of Die Hot With a Vengeance, keeps the top zipper of her new denim Adidas track jacket “zipped up to the neck [while] the bottom zipper is fully open.” It makes for a “layer-accommodating, casual jacket” that she can have on with a sweatshirt. “It hasn’t really been fall enough to really give it a proper run, but it’s good for like a 55-to-68-degree kind of day when it’s gusty,” she says.

After noticing Alexandra Leclerc in Kookaï’s Spencer Spray Jacket, brand consultant Lucia Litman got one herself. Just as Leclerc does, Litman zips it all the way up. “Not only for how it looks, but I wear this jacket a lot on walks, and it makes me feel less bad about not putting sunscreen on my neck,” she says. Just note: Although it looks waterproof, “alas, it is dry clean only,” says Litman.

Under $500

A friend convinced journalist Eliza Dumais to buy this jacket at Beacon’s Closet a few months after her book Grape Juice was published, saying it made her “look like an author.” (We’ve linked to a similar version.) “I still maintain that it has a way of making me look more sophisticated, more literary, and more professional, as double-breasted anythings often do,” says Dumais. She affectionately refers to it as “a glorified wool blanket” that can “weather those somewhat alarmingly cold transitional nights when summer is actually, actually over.”

The best thing in Sézane’s “relaunch-rebrand” might be the outerwear — according to Oset Babür-Winter, founder of Prix Fixe. Increasingly hard to find for less than $500 is a 100 percent wool coat — “Too many coats at this price point have polyester blended in,” says Babür-Winter — but the Rafael Coat is. Simultaneously double-faced and unlined, it’s a “wool-cardigan-and-jacket hybrid.” It makes school pickup and drop-off with her daughter a whole lot cozier. And it “makes my unhinged sweatsuit outfits look slightly more polished (I think).” Or, since the wool isn’t itchy, she can wear a T-shirt “without worrying about feeling uncomfortable.”

“The coat is the outfit,” says marketing consultant Lizzie Noonan of her Jonas Coat. “It’s a showstopper at the Fort Greene farmers’ market on a sunny day” and anytime it’s “unseasonably warm.” And while it’s branded as a raincoat, Noonan says it didn’t act like it on a “rain test” during a recent weekend, making it “best to save for a clear fall day.” Consider sizing up in the Jonas; Noonan went two sizes larger than her regular size.

Dumais wore her Carter jacket all spring — including on a trip to Melbourne, where “you’ll experience the full spectrum of global weather in a day” — and now she’s wearing it into the fall. “It’s an easy transition piece, because it’s substantial enough to block the wind on those brisk October mornings but light enough to layer a chunky sweater beneath if need be,” she says. Better yet, it’s “not terribly cumbersome to carry over your arm in this weird transitional phase” when summer makes the occasional return.

“I put this jacket through everything: subway rides, dog-park mornings, and many rain showers,” says photographer Cynthia Edorh. In fact, the “glorious sunny New York weather” has made the fabric fade. But the trench’s structure — the padded shoulders and front button closures on the sleeves — can “make a simple outfit feel intentional and sophisticated.”

“When the weather gets chilly, the only thing you’ll find me wearing is my oversize men’s Beaufort,” says Morrigan McCarthy, writer of the newsletter Home Run. Occasionally, you’ll need to wax it so the canvas remains water-resistant. “Then you have a season where you look too fresh and new, but wear it enough and it ages back into the weathered classic look,” she says. Hers is from Curator, a secondhand clothing store in Rockland, Maine. “For me, it’s a buy it (or inherit it) and keep it for life situation,” notes McCarthy. “It should look like your uncle left it at your house and you just never gave it back. Bonus points if that’s actually the case.”

The Beaufort is also the favorite Barbour of Victoria Filippini, a content creator who writes the newsletter Taking Notes. “This is the one I reach for when I know it’s going to be bad weather,” Filippini says. “It truly does stand up to whatever you throw at it. I’ve worn it in absolutely torrential rain for hours on end and been completely bone dry underneath.” And she doesn’t need a purse while wearing it: “I can just stuff everything I need into the various zip and snap pockets all over the jacket. Practicality!”

Jessica Hella, owner of Yesterday Tomorrow, has had a Barbour Beadnell since 2013. “Through college, I wore it nonstop: rainstorms, with layers under in the snow,” says Hella. It still holds up, and “in my opinion looks even better with age.” She adds, “It feels like a piece that will live on beyond this lifetime.”

Lavenham has been making horse rugs since 1969, and Filippini, who grew up riding, says she couldn’t help getting this “very classic quilted jacket from an English heritage brand.” She loves the “beautiful detailing, like the corduroy piping around the trim and the pockets,” and notes that it “even has the name of the person who quality-checked it written on the inside.”

After a trip to Le Bon Marché in Paris a few weeks ago, Harrison brought home this Maria de la Orden Pek Jacket. “It’s one of those true dress-up, dress-down pieces that is a widely advertised concept that never seems to materialize,” says Harrison. At her sister-in-law’s birthday dinner, it received a ton of compliments — and she plans on wearing it later this month at a panel event that she’s running. It contrasts nicely with her “otherwise Eileen Fisher–meets–Aritzia wardrobe,” she says.

When I asked costume designer Michelle J. Li about her spring jacket, she had just brought this trench (while in Shanghai) with a detachable goose-down layer — the 700-plus fill power is on par with brands like Arc’teryx and North Face. “I’ve tossed it on during rain showers and windy evenings, and stripped out the inner down layer when it’s gotten too warm,” she told me at the time. Since then, she’s been adding and removing the lining this fall, as the weather permits. “I live in Greenpoint, by the water, where the breeze coming off the East River creates these insane wind tunnels,” she says. “I wore it out on that one recent really cold, rainy day where it seemed like every New Yorker unanimously decided it was now trench weather.” It kept her warm and dry, even while her umbrella flipped inside out.

[Editor’s note: The brand lists prices in pounds, so this is an approximation in dollars.]

Over $500

Before getting this jacket, Noonan had tried on different vintage jackets “desperately trying to nail this look to no avail.” But then she found Soeur’s Vincenzo, which she says is “the perfect oversize leather jacket.” She sized down, as it runs large. “You can stretch it into colder days because it has extra space for layers underneath,” she adds. Bonus: The front pockets “double as my purse when I’m running out the door or have my hands full on the subway.”