The problem of the in-between season has occupied wardrobes for as long as wardrobes have existed, and the solutions proposed over recent years have tended toward the shapeless. Victoria Beckham has spent this week arguing for something with rather more architecture, stepping out in a slightly oversized drawstring jacket in dark khaki, worn with a white T-shirt and jeans. The proposition looks casual and behaves formally, which is the particular sleight of hand that has kept her design instincts commercially unassailable for the better part of two decades.

A Waist Where the Windbreaker Had None

The distinction resides entirely in the drawstring. Last season’s outerwear staked everything on volume, the bomber and the windbreaker both trading structure for a slouch that flattered a certain kind of nonchalance and very little else. This jacket retains the relaxed energy while reintroducing a defined waist, cinching the middle to produce something closer to a peplum than to a parka, and the resulting silhouette sits at the precise midpoint between a blazer and a coat. The category carries a longer history than its casual air suggests. Britain codified the word during the Second World War, when the Board of Trade introduced the Utility Clothing Scheme in 1941 and stamped garments with the CC41 label, rationing fabric to the point where every pocket and every seam required justification. Designers including Norman Hartnell were recruited to prove that austerity could be elegant, and the field jacket emerged from the same wartime logic with its drawstring waist intended to keep out weather rather than to flatter. Eight decades later the flattering has become the point.

How She Wears It, and How You Should

Beckham keeps the palette earthy and the styling minimal, which is the entire instruction. Dark khaki belongs to the autumnal register that returns each September without ever requiring reinvention, and it sits comfortably against denim, cream, chocolate and every shade of grey. The formula she has settled on involves a plain white T-shirt and straight jeans, allowing the jacket to supply all of the shape. Those wishing to push it further should try the same piece over a slim knit and a midi skirt, where the cinched waist performs the work a belt would otherwise attempt. Her recent collaboration with Gap offered a khaki funnel-neck version of the same idea at rather more forgiving prices, which suggests she has been building toward this argument for some time.