What's Her Story?

She knows a great coat is more than the skeleton key to a fall wardrobe. It can also unlock your best self.

- BRIDGET FOLEY

"Is that supposed to be pretty?"

"That" was a coat. My coat. The questioner: Dennis Freedman, master of deadpan delivery and, at the time, creative director of W magazine, where we both worked. The coat, which is still in my repertoire more than 20 years later: a floor-sweeping, spliced-together leather shearling with a tribal warrior vibe, aggressive yet oddly elegant in the deand re-constructed manner of the genre's genius, Martin Margiela.

No, Dennis, it's not supposed to be pretty. It's supposed to be noticed.

Oh, the wonders of a great coat. Outerwear does more than keep you warm. It announces the wearer-it says something about who you are, particularly in cold, walkable climates. (Hence the oft-quoted line, "In New York, your coat is your car?") A fabulous coat can captivate. I once chased a woman across the street to find out who had made her coat. Oblivious, she eluded my pursuit, and I couldn't get her artful intarsia stunner out of my mind for days. A major case of coat envy? Yes, but I was hardly the first thus stricken.

That distinction dates way back to Genesis, which identified such envy as a malignant evil in a famous tale. Instigating the emotion: not power or thy neighbor's wife, but a coat an amazing, decorated, colorful coat that indicated a father's preference for one of his children so distinctly it led the others to plot fratricide. Admit it, you've been there. Surely you've seen a spectacular coat and thought, "I'd kill for it."