We head to Copenhagen to put our exclusive range of 27 boots through its paces.

Try as we might, it’s no longer possible to deny that autumn has arrived. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, gaze out of your windows and consider the evidence. It’s cold. It’s dark. There are more leaves on the floor than there are on the trees. Squirrels scamper through the grass, gathering supplies for the coming winter; they know what’s up. For as sure as summer leads to autumn, so autumn will, in turn, make way for winter. Before we know it we’ll be donning heavy coats, swaddling ourselves in thick woollen scarves and lacing our feet into sturdy leather boots every time we leave the house. On reflection, though, that might not be such a bad thing.

You see, much like our bushy-tailed friends, MR PORTER saw this whole thing coming. And we’ve been building a winter stockpile of our very own. Back in spring, while you were dreaming of sandy beaches and stuffing your wardrobe with lightweight cotton blazers and linen shirts, we were deep in conversation with 16 of our favourite brands, devising an exclusive collection of boots that would be ready in time for autumn. Now, the time has come to share it with you.

Our lineup includes fashion labels from Prada to Thom Browne to Tom Ford as well as specialist shoemakers including the likes of John Lobb, George Cleverley and Edward Green. It covers all bases, too, from hand-burnished leather lace-ups and sleek Chelsea boots to the sort of rugged, hiking-inspired boots that you might picture yourself wearing while kicking through leaves, tramping up muddy hills or indulging in any of the other attendant pleasures of autumn.

Primarily, though, this is a collection designed for cities. We settled on the name “The Urban Explorer” for the collection because that’s what the majority of us are: urbanites whose first concerns when choosing a pair of boots is not their ability to traverse a waterlogged field, but how well they cope with the challenges of getting around the city in style. It was to a city that we headed, then, when the time came to put these boots through their paces.

Recent years have seen Copenhagen emerge as one of the planet’s most stylish destinations. Boasting a rich heritage of fine and applied arts, a food scene that’s the envy of the world, and a burgeoning fashion industry that has spawned brands such as Norse Projects and NN07, the Danish capital is positioning itself to usurp Stockholm as the epicentre of Scandi cool.

Copenhagen’s location in Northern Europe calls for a straightforward approach to beat the chill, though. This is a place where winter bites hard, and where style is no substitute for practicality. Luckily, with these boots, you don’t have to choose between looking good and staying warm. Here, we’re introducing you to just a fraction of what you can expect from The Urban Explorer collection.

Prada’s raison d’être, it seems, is to make the chronically unfashionable fashionable again. Last season, the Italian brand pledged its support to no less egregious a crime against style than hiking sandals. Somehow, it managed to make them seem rather hip and progressive, neither of which are qualities you’d normally associate with outdoor gear. This season, the ill-favoured article in question is the hiking boot. You know what we mean: the sort of boot that comes with D-ring lace eyelets, chunky lug soles and more ankle support than is strictly necessary for the commute. From these humble ingredients – and with the addition of a few premium materials – Prada has constructed a highly desirable piece of footwear that won’t look out of place in the city. It’s styled here with sweatpants, a Margiela knit and a puffer jacket from the Junya Watanabe x North Face collaboration – another sign that outdoor gear is set to be a big story this season.

The sturdy, Northampton-made brogue has, for many years, provided the foundations on which Thom Browne’s distinctive look is built. Typically, it’s a longwing Derby shoe, but a brogue boot works just as well. A swift note on brogues, which are subject to some seriously arcane nomenclature. “Broguing” refers to the decorative perforations on a shoe’s toecap, and the extent of this dictates whether a shoe is a “quarter brogue” (just the edges of the toecap), a “half brogue” (the edges and the centre of the toecap), or a “full brogue” (the edges and the centre of the toecap, which is elongated and wraps around the sides of the shoe). These boots, then, are full brogues, or “wingtips”, as they’re also known. Along with the usual details you can expect of Thom Browne – superior quality, durable pebble-grain leather, and those iconic grosgrain pull tabs – they also come with rubber-crepe soles. They’re worn here with cropped grey trousers and striped woollen socks that call out the colours of the brand’s signature grosgrain trim.

With the lauded Colombian menswear designer Mr Haider Ackermann at the helm and its ready-to-wear collections making waves in the fashion world, Berluti is becoming as revered for its clothes as it is for its shoes. Lest we forget, though, it was as a cobbler to the famous – President John F Kennedy and Messrs Frank Sinatra and Andy Warhol have all been customers – that this Parisian brand first established its reputation as a purveyor of luxury, and its shoes are still the stuff of legend. Central to their appeal is the leather itself, which has been hand-treated to give it a patina that develops with age and wear. The effect is both beautiful and unmistakable; once you know what you’re looking for, it’s hard to miss a Berluti shoe. All the more reason, then, to keep the rest of your look subdued. We’ve styled this extravagant, shearling-lined boot with a simple wool trouser from Altea and a double-breasted camel overcoat from Prada.

The ankle-high desert boot, or chukka, as it’s often known, is perhaps the least boot-like of all styles, existing in an indeterminate state somewhere between the Derby shoe and the full lace-up boot. As such, it provides a happy middle ground between formal and casual, rugged and sophisticated. It’s typically made from suede, which rules it out as a reliable boot for winter. This version from John Lobb, however, comes in a supple grey buffalo leather with heavy rubber soles, meaning that you’re free to stride through the drizzly grey streets under stormy grey skies without getting your feet wet. Sticking with the grey theme, which only seems proper given the season, we’ve styled these desert boots with a Prince of Wales checked overcoat from Solid Homme, also in grey.

There’s a lot to love about Chelsea boots, not least the fact that they do away with those pesky laces. The elasticated gussets are not their main selling point, though. Rather, it’s the air of rakish swagger that they lend a man. The boots take their name from the west London borough at the heart of the “Swinging Sixties”, and such is the persistence of the association that it’s hard to step into a pair – especially one as eye-catching as these, which are made by Tom Ford – without fancying yourself as a modern-day Mr George Best sauntering along the King’s Road in his prime. We’ve styled these “Edgar” boots with dark denim, again from Tom Ford, and a peacoat from the new, Amsterdam-based menswear brand Salle Privée.

**Shop The Urban Explorer boot capsule here **