The Investment Dresser: printed coats

It is to the law of Sod that we must once more return this week as we wave a weary farewell to the riot of exhausting patterns and prints that have dominated recent summers past.

I don't know about you, but I have vowed not to wear printed trousers again for a very, very long time. Possibly infinity and beyond come into play here. Rambling blooms and modernist squiggles have also been banished from my person. I spent a cathartic weekend recently expunging my wardrobe of all such irrational exuberance. The rack of clothes I now gaze upon every morning looks as minimalist and pure as a… I was going to say a monk's tonsure, but in the circumstances, let's settle for a baby's.

So now, obviously, I am desperate for some print. Or I was, because shortly after the great purge I found myself next to a rail of printed spring coats by Tara Jarmon . Before I knew it I was trying one on and… sorry, I've blanked out. I do know that there is now a blue and white woven 1950s-style duster coat winking at me from among the purity of my closet.

If wink were all it did, it would have no place in this column, especially since this is meant to be reserved for pieces that have stood the test of time. But in the month I've had it, it has been on many happy excursions and everyone has smothered it with lurve.

I'm pretty sure they're not just being polite. This is a life-affirming coat and, although striking, its colours - sky blue and ivory - aren't strident. It's not so much patterned as a bit tribal and, now that I come to look at it, rather Matisse. Next summer, another analogy will probably come to mind. Suffice to say it makes my uniform of trousers look summery and joyful: it's beautiful worn with all black, all white, monochrome denim and any other (plain) permutation you can think of. It's a worker too - breakfast, office, dinner, weddings - with enough room to slip a little down jacket underneath when it's chilly. It is, in other words, just the dash of playfulness that even a minimalist needs.

^{Left to right: Floral cotton, £875, by Mother of Pearl, from my-wardrobe.com , Crew-neck cotton-mix, £79.99, by Zara , Zipped cotton, £624, by Judy Wu, from Wolf & Badger}

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