Spring is an excellent season. Spring is lilac wisteria and chocolate eggs and bank holiday Mondays. It is respite from worrying about heating bills, and booking a pedicure on payday instead. We get to crack open a window and let the light in after months of hibernation.
Spring is the absolute magical fluffy best in every way except one, which is the crucial matter of what on earth to wear. Every other season is pretty straightforward. Winter is puffy coats and colourful gloves, summer is cotton dresses and sandals and autumn is knitwear and shiny boots.
But spring? Spring is putting all your coats away and then getting caught in a downpour in a cardigan. It is going sockless in a pair of loafers and then catching sight of your anaemic-looking ankles and ricocheting back to tights.
If only there was a perfect spring jacket, one that would keep the last blasts of chilly air at bay while looking ahead to the sunny horizon. Well, I think I have found it. The bomber jacket is the perfect spring jacket.
Well, no, you are thinking, because why would I want to look like a getaway driver in a dodgy action movie? Think again, sunshine. The bomber jacket is not that guy any more. It is what you might wear if you were engaged in some ultimately zeitgeist-ish lifestyle. Like, I don’t know, opening an artisanal sourdough bakery in Copenhagen.
It has been reborn, for spring 2023, as the perfect partner for your spring wardrobe, accessorised this time around with curated ear piercings and an oat milk flat white, rather than with a bottle of Bud and a knuckleduster.
Why? Well, it is probably down to an accidental pincer movement by Hailey Bieber and Tom Cruise. Just because you are too old to know (or care) who Hailey Bieber is (the short answer: she’s a model) don’t for a moment imagine that she isn’t pulling the puppet strings of your wardrobe anyway, because she is. Off-duty-model energy has always sold clothes, and Bieber does the street-as-runway look better than almost anyone since Kate Moss.
So when Bieber starts wearing vintage-looking bomber jackets, oversized so that the shoulder seams sit at the upper arms and the hem at the upper thigh, the bomber jacket really takes off. Add to that the afterglow of Top Gun: Maverick, which last year reminded all of us of the Hollywood glamour of a flight jacket, and we are in the midst of a fully fledged bomber jacket renaissance.
The jacket you are looking for is not a snug, shiny little thing but something much cooler and more versatile. The ideal silhouette is close to that of a peacoat: broad across the shoulders, a soft cocoon slouch.
The hem needs to sit lower than your waist, so that it isn’t fighting aesthetically with whatever is going on at the waistline of whatever you are wearing underneath, and more importantly so that you are secured against draughts.
Zara has several bomber styles this season, but its Long Bomber Jacket (£49.99) is a particularly elegant take, with flap pockets at the front but no fussy detailing. Vintage stores are a good hunting ground if you are looking for a leather bomber, which looks much cooler than boxfresh if a little bit beaten-up.
For a full spring refresh, the bomber pairs naturally with the return of the cargo pant. This is the new jeans and denim jacket, a transitional weather pairing that is both satisfyingly functional and riding high on the zeitgeist. It will make a striped shirt and pleat-front trousers look less formal, and bring a little bite to a pretty spring dress. It has you covered. Spring is now declared perfect.
Model: Lilly Bridger at Body London. Hair and makeup: Carol Morley at Carol Hayes. Bomber jacket: Hush. Dress: Nanushka
