Remember a time when a coat was just a coat? In late 2021, Toteme, the influential label by OG Scandinavian style blogger Elin Kling, released its Scarf Jacket to the world. It was a relatively simple design — a neutral-hued wool coat featuring a built-in scarf and contrasting embroidery — but within months the garment had become a street-style star in its own right. Now, every brand seems to be grappling with how to soup up their outerwear with built-in wraps, shawls, and scarves. Next up? The cape coat.
Designers and contemporary labels alike are Frankensteining jackets of all kinds with cape silhouettes and capelet sleeves to save us from having to layer ourselves. During New York Fashion Week’s recent Fall Winter 2025 shows, it was a legitimate game of Where’s Waldo? when it came to spotting cape-coats on the runway. (As the race is on to define this term, let’s go ahead and refer to them as “capoats” for now.)
At Ulla Johnson, a crowd including actors Beanie Feldstein and Rebecca Hall nodded approvingly as a dark emerald green denim jacket and a drawstring-accented khaki chore style floated past with buttoned-on capelet sleeves. The opening look at Altuzarra featured a decadent ankle-length black cape-adorned coat. Similarly, at the celebrity-thronged Calvin Klein show, cape-coat hybrids caught the wind on male and female models alike.
Maria McManus, a favorite of Sarah Paulson, Caitriona Balfe, and Christy Turlington, presented a heather gray coat that had the appropriate attachment to do the swaddling for you. (The sustainably-minded New York-based Irish designer said she was preoccupied with creating pieces that would ensure the wearer felt cocooned and protected, given everything that’s going on in the world right now.)
Capoats also abounded at Carolina Herrera, where Wes Gordon went the ladylike route in a gray opera cloak embroidered with golden flowers. At LaPointe, oversized square-shaped additions jazzed up a teal trench and a shiny brown utility jacket, while Marina Moscone offered us a cape-like take on a satin-lapeled tuxedo blazer.
Khaite’s Catherine Holstein gave us a glimpse at what the cool girls will be lusting over, with her fur shrug-slash-topper-meets-shrunken-trophy jacket offering. A similar fuzzy idea was seen coming around the bend for Australian label Scanlan Theodore, in the form of a luxurious cape attachment in glossy black faux fur and leather. A neutral-hued take was also a highlight at Kallmeyer, where sophistication was the order of the day, as was a colossal cashmere shawl over at Mexican designer Stephanie Suberville’s brand Heirlome.
Novel styling ideas on the runways showed that you don’t have to rush out and buy new outerwear, either.
Over at Tory Burch, the genius stylist Brian Molloy used a brooch (another big runway trend) to pin one sleeve asymmetrically across the chest of dresses and cardigans with cap sleeves — a move that’s worth experimenting with at home. And Jorden Bickham, styling for TWP, expertly refashioned a crewneck chocolate brown sweater into a semi-cape-style shrug over a velvet dress. Now why didn’t we think of that?
If you’ve already got the shoppies and don’t want to wait until next winter to try the trend, why not get ahead of the curve with these main character-ready outerwear pieces.
Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?
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