THE CULT OF COS

The one label the style set really swears by? It's – whisper it – high street, and you can wear it too, says Henrik Lischke

- Henrik Lischke

The idea that fashion month is just about the runways is a misconception. It's the acme of see and be seen – and an excellent litmus test of what real people are wearing. Among the designer labels (Chanel, of course) and one-off pieces (sourced on Vinted), there's a brand recurring on the FROW. It's good old COS, aka the Celine of the high street.

Both Jane McFarland, Grazia's associate editor, and Ellie Pithers, deputy editor at The Financial Times' How To Spend It, swear by the Swedish retailer's cornflower blue shirts to see them through all FROW settings. 'It's perfect with a navy Raey suit I wear constantly. I just wore this at London Fashion Week with brown Miu Miu moccasins – I like it with black cigarette trousers and a trench, and with my black wide-leg Lemaire jeans; it's the perfect shade of blue,' says Pithers. GQ's style projects editor, Itunu Oke, always takes her COS trench while fashion correspondent at Puck News, Lauren Sherman, says her navy blue COS jumper is better than any luxury alternative. In short: we live in COS.

And it's not just fashion folk. Take a deep dive to the far reaches of your closet – guaranteed you'll find at least one COS piece. Unlike many high-street brands, whose appeal ebbs and flows with the trends they speak to, COS has stuck with the maxim it set in place when it first opened its doors on London's Regent Street in 2007 – of creating long-lasting investment designs. 'We've changed over time, but what COS set out from the beginning, that ethos is still there,' design director Karin Gustafsson tells