The tracksuit top was a clear winner at the AW16 London Collections: Men shows. Here's how to style Burberry's version for the coming season.

It’s very much a point of pride during such insider-y events as this June’s London Collections: Men for all attendees to wear the absolute-latest-most-ridiculously-new things possible, so proving their impeccable style credentials. Which means that, though summer has only really just got rolling (in a rickety sort of way), we saw a number of people hotfooting it around our fair capital this weekend in key pieces from the AW16 collections. In particular, we noticed several hot-off-the-mark folks wearing Burberry’s distinctive, 1970s-tinged zip-up track jacket– the frontrunner in a leading trend for the coming season.

BURBERRY Striped Satin-Jersey Track Jacket

The good news is that this is an insider move now accessible for everyone – the above example, in a deep emerald green, has arrived pleasingly early on MR PORTER and can be yours in a couple of clicks. In fact, the only thing left to do here, if you want to appear incredibly ahead of the crowd, is to decide which way you’re going to wear it – scroll down for your options in this direction.

Pairing a zipped-up track top with a parka is both a throwback to the style typified by North England’s football casual culture in the 1980s, and the deluge of perky Britpop stars (such as Mr Liam Gallagher) that took inspiration from it in the following decade. In fact, that sharp-but-tough look, which mixed casualwear with hi-tech military-inspired apparel and designer sportswear, is one of those cultural touchpoints that never really ages. Go the whole hog by wearing your Burberry track jacket with a parka from Nonnative and, of course, some Gucci jeans, and make sure everyone is aware of all the designer labels.

An interesting development in tracksuit-top-dom this season is the pairing of the sportswear classic with a sharp blazer – it sounds like it shouldn’t work but actually the juxtaposition feels nicely cosmopolitan and futuristic. Of course, the key here is to make sure the rest of the outfit is as understated as possible; in short, you’ll need to click through to Officine Generale – a brand that specialises in this kind of impeccable, but very malleable smart-casual look – and pick some separates in neutral shades of grey and navy. For footwear, go for sneakers – contrast is one thing but a tracksuit top and a pair of Oxfords is going to make you look like an aged market trader.

As we have opined in an earlier article (The Dos and Don’ts of the Tracksuit Top), you shouldn’t ever really wear a tracksuit top with matching sweatpants– the idea, after all, is to be stylish, not to look like an athletics coach from the 1970s. That doesn’t mean, however, that you need to give sportswear a swerve completely. To complement the retro-futurism of Burberry’s hero piece this season, we would recommend these trousers from Lanvin, which, inspired by biker pants, have a panelled, tapered cut and a strong feeling of performance wear to them. These Common Projects sneakers, on the other hand, are a new twist on a classic sporting style – much like the tracksuit top itself – so should complete the look rather nicely.