Bestselling author Jojo Moyes: 'How I fell in love with these feel-good designer coats' By Jojo Moyes For You Magazine Published: 03:01 EDT, 28 September 2024 | Updated: 03:01 EDT, 28 September 2024 e-mail View comments Many years ago I wrote a short story called Last Year’s Coat, about a woman who longs for a coat she can’t afford. Pragmatic and thrifty, she tries on a cheaper version, hoping to convince herself it’s just as good, but it’s not the same. The shoddy cut, the cheap fabric, all conspire to make her feel worse about herself.
I think, as is often the case, there was more of me in this story than I realised at the time. Because, of all my clothes, my coat is the thing that alters how I feel about myself. I don’t buy a winter coat every season, but every few years I spy something and zero in on it like a guided missile; and then I wear that thing to death over a period of years.
The Bonnie Coat is ‘transformative’ The first one I remember falling in love with was a child’s raincoat. It’s possible my mother made it for me; she made a lot of my clothes. I teamed it with my grey beret and felt invincible wearing it.
I think I was three. Equally, aged eight I remember the horror of being given a neighbour’s son’s parka (it was the 1970s, we were all broke, and all wore cast-offs). I wept, convinced that if I wore it everyone would think I was a boy.
Even then I understood that a good coat is armour, not just against the weather but against the worl.
