The Best Coats for Every Essence
Are most of the style essences actually a poor fit for cold-weather fashion?
At first glance, it can seem that way! More on that below!
First, let’s explore:
The Best Coats for Every Essence
Classic Coats
Vibe: Timeless, polished, chic
Best Styles: Basic overcoats, trench coats, peacoats
Also Look For: Hip-length to mid-calf silhouettes; neutral colors; minimal detail
Classic clothes tend to be some of the easiest to find in stores, since they never really go out of style.
The irony is that so far, I’ve yet to identify a single person who’s primarily Classic!
Natural Coats
Vibe: Practical, relaxed, “outdoor adventure appropriate”
Best Styles: Puffers, parkas, utility jackets
Also Look For: Wide, roomy fits; neutral or earthy colors; hip-length to ankle-length
Faux-fur trim on a fully Natural coat can work! It feels practical and nature-based.
But a very fluffy collar typically suits:
Romantic Coats
Vibe: Glam, luxe, extravagant
Best Styles: Fur-trimmed coats, wrap coats, all-over fluffy faux-furs
Also Look For: Dark or rich colors; belted coats; waist-length to mid-calf
If you also have a more casual essence, like Natural and Gamine, you can use it to make your elaborate Romantic coat feel more down-to-earth.
Of all the essences, Romantic outerwear might feel most formal, maybe tied with:
Ethereal Coats
Vibe: Dreamy, delicate, unique
Best Styles: Drape-front coats, waterfall coats, long-hair faux-furs
Also Look For: Light colors; soft fabric; narrow silhouettes; hip-length to floor-length
For many people, this might feel a million times too bold for real life… the good news is that light neutrals are more iconically Ethereal, anyway.
I just thought the long-hair Ethereal coat paired with long pink hair was cool—it shows it’s not just Gamines who wear fun fashion!
Gamine Coats
Vibe: Creative, cheerful, lively
Best Styles: Patterned coats, colorful plaid peacoats, hussar jackets
Also Look For: Vibrant or upbeat colors; short, angular shapes, including lapels and pockets; waist-length to mid-thigh
Gamine is the “life of the party” essence that usually seems to have the most fun.
Dramatic Coats
Vibe: Edgy, stark, powerful
Best Styles: Tailored maxi coats, column coats, leather jackets
Also Look For: Dark colors; straight, stiff, narrow silhouettes; long, sharp lapels; angular, avant-garde detail, like wide shoulder pads
Some Dramatic coats feel like they came straight from a sci-fi film, like this “Matrix” style leather jacket.
Ingenue Coats
Vibe: Feminine, flirty, retro
Best Styles: Princess coats, swing coats, fit-n-flare coats
Also Look For: Light colors, especially pastels; round collars; waist-length to mid-calf
Ingenue is the beauty of sweetness, youth, and extremely pretty vibes.
Retro fashion can provide fantastic Ingenue inspiration. But the Ingenue aesthetic can work well for modernity, too. Future post!
Blended Coats
You can also combine the above outerwear elements into a blended coat! Like:
Romantic Dramatic
Sleek Dramatic leather + Romantic tightly-cinched waist
Natural Gamine
Wide Natural puffer + playful Gamine color
Romantic Natural
Roomy, quilted Natural + Romantic all-over fluffy texture
Dramatic Natural
…not sure what you’d call this hoodie style—safety-pin chic?—but there’s a lot of intense, avant-garde Dramatic with some cool, slouchy Natural.
If an outfit ever confuses you so much that you’re like, “I have no idea what is going on with that outfit”—fair chance it has a lot of Dramatic!
Cold Weather Conspiracy?
At first glance, four of the essences seem strongly opposed to cold weather:
Ingenue and Gamine—best in short silhouettes, like short sleeves, cropped pants, and actual shorts
Romantic—best in skin-baring, skin-tight styles
Ethereal—best in light-as-air fabrics
And intriguingly, as we see above, Ingenue, Gamine, Romantic, and Ethereal coats definitely are not the most common outerwear styles.
If you picture the quintessential winter coat, there’s good odds it’ll be highly Classic or Natural, or maybe Dramatic.
The other essences do have plenty outerwear options—they just don’t tend to be as well-represented in the mainstream.
If Your Current Coat Doesn’t Match Your Type
If your coat isn’t a perfect match for your style type, you can make it a better fit by throwing on a scarf that does suit your primary essence.
Scarf options:
Ingenue—Short or moderate-length scarves with soft or gently silky textures, especially in pastel colors or with small floral prints
Gamine—Short, somewhat narrow scarves with bold or bright colors or small angular patterns, especially with contrasting colors
Romantic—Moderate-length, furry, plush, velvety or silky-appearing scarves
Ethereal—Extra-long, lightweight-appearing, draped scarves in very light colors
Natural—Chunky knits and other practical-appearing scarves
Dramatic—Extra-long, thick, straight scarves in dark colors
Classic—Basic scarves—neutral colors, moderate length, no embellishment
Make Your Essences Work for Cold Weather
Do Ingenues, Gamines, Romantics, and Ethereals have to choose between looking harmonious or freezing in winter?
No! There’s many ways to make every essence work for the cold.
Here’s just a few:
Layer! Any essence can make layering work, and Ethereal in particular is flattered by layers of fabric. Gamine is also amazing in layers, because you can mix patterns and colors.
Layering is also a great way to give the impression that a silhouette is cropped, which can flatter Gamine, Ingenue, or Romantic. For example, if you layer ankle-length or mid-calf boots over pants in a different color, you create the impression of a cropped pant. Or, if you layer a short sleeve shirt over a long sleeve shirt in a different color, the effect will visually shorten the sleeves of the long shirt. Etc.
Tights! Tights or thick leggings can really suit any essence, especially when they’re in neutral colors and mostly covered by winter dresses/skirts/boots. They’ll simply take on the vibe of the rest of your outfit.
Focus more on figurative than literal. Even though Ingenue and Gamine are stereotypically best in cropped silhouettes—and genuinely are really flattered by those styles—they can still make full-length silhouettes work. The key is to ensure that all the garment’s other elements suit your essence. Then, regardless of the literal length, the overall vibe will still work for you.
Future posts will explore more cold weather fashion! :)
***
P.S. New Fourth Essence Celebs!
I haven’t typed too many celebs as having a fourth essence lately, but I do have a couple updates:
Previously, when I was typing celebs only up to their top 3 essences, I typed Jaime Pressly as ECG. I still think those are her top essences, but I’ve retyped her as having Romantic as a fourth (which kind of makes sense, since I think she shares her type with ECGR Margot Robbie, and some people swear they’re doppelgangers!)
I also recently retyped ECG Chloë Grace Moretz as having Romantic as a fourth (though I think it’s likely quite small in amount). You can read more about her blend in the ECG post
What’s the Deal with Fourth Essence Celebs?
When I started pinning celebs on Pinterest, I typically just typed them up to their top three essences and didn’t check to see if they had a fourth.
(Though even back then, I’d sometimes identify celebs as having fourth essences and note that on Pinterest. This would often be because their fourth essence seemed especially important to their best styling.)
Around a year ago, I switched to always checking for fourth essences.
So, you’ll now see many celebs on my Pinterest who are noted to have a significant fourth!
But, for some three essence celebs who I typed early on, I haven’t yet checked whether they have an extra essence.
So, I’m in the process of doing that!
Initially, I was doing this systematically, in alphabetical order. So I can say that, imo, all the CGI, DCG, DCI, and DGI celebs I’ve pinned on Pinterest do NOT have a fourth essence (unless I’ve indicated on Pinterest that they do).
But eventually, I stopped checking people alphabetically. What I’m doing now is prioritizing people who I think are most likely to have a fourth essence.
So, I thought that I should include updates in blog posts if I’ve reassigned any celeb from having three essences to having four, just to be transparent about my typing.
I’ll also say that for nearly all the style clients I’ve had who have had a fourth essence, it has been 15% or less of their beauty. Most of the time, only 10% or 5%.
I suspect this is true of celebrities, too.
This doesn’t mean that fourth essences are meaningless, but imo, it does mean that you can typically get a pretty good understanding of a person’s beauty even just typing up to their top three essences.
But for the sake of honesty and clarity, I do want to highlight whenever I switch a celeb from having three essences to four.
I hope everyone has a wonderful, restful holiday season, and please always feel free to reach out if you have comments or questions! : )
