THROW SOME SHADE

• Photograph by Mr Christian Vierig/Getty Images

Just because the skies are greyer than a grey squirrel convention in Grey County, Ontario, doesn’t mean you have to follow suit. Charcoals, blacks and navies may be the default palette for inclement dressing, but somewhere amid that copious layering – and this season, it’s all about piling it on and peeling it off like, in the immortal words of Mr Marvin Gaye, “a great big onion” – you should showcase the snap and crackle of the strategically placed colour pop. A vibrant knit is the ideal vehicle for this; witness the way this gentleman’s bright red sweater blazes a trail through an ashen afternoon, with the pattern on his scarf raising extra hue and cry. This outfit packs so much heat that we’d be worried about spontaneous combustion, were it not for the jeans’ built-in ventilation.

BECOME A MONO-MANIAC

• Photograph by Mr Adam Katz Sinding/Trunk Archive

Monochrome doesn’t have to mean monolithic, let alone monotonous. If you subtly vary the tones and textures, you can elevate a one-colour outfit into – to borrow a phrase beloved of all the vintage vinylheads out there – glorious mono. This gentleman is less a man in black than a man in jet, sable, raven, onyx, and yes, even obsidian, thanks to the way he plays the darker, more tactile wools of the overcoat and sweater off against the sleeker, sheenier shades of the jacket and trousers. And while he varies the proportions – compare and contrast the skinny lapels of the jacket with the chunkier iterations on the coat and the generous heft of the rollneck – he ensures that everything fits like a glove (as doubtless his gloves would, if he’d elected to wear any).

SHEARLING’S A SURE THING

• Photograph by Mr Jason Lloyd Evans

Way back when the shearling trend first started gathering momentum, Britain was still firmly ensconced in the EU and Mr Donald Trump was a humble – OK, make that no-so-humble – star of reality TV. Now, innumerable seasons and wayward exit polls later, the world may have turned upside down, but shearling’s still very much a thing, thanks to its sheer utility – that suede/sheepskin combo is just as effective at keeping out urban chills as it was for its original ovine custodians, as they huddled through a moorland winter – but also for its slouchy, tactile elan. All this gentleman has to add is a sweater and a rakishly knotted scarf, and he’s ready for anything that the elements – not to mention the vagaries of fashion – can throw at him.