Few menswear staples have maintained their cultural and sartorial relevance as convincingly as the trench coat. Introduced in the late 19th century out of practicality, rather than style, it was first intended as a lightweight, weatherproof outer layer for army officers, complete with signature function-first details, such as epaulettes, storm flaps, D-rings and a belted waist.

“The greatest restaurants,” Dom Hamdy reports, are “the ones that make you feel something. They are places that really facilitate human connection. You go into a restaurant, you go through the curtain. It might be an actual curtain or a figurative one, but you should feel like you’re transported away from your world.” Hamdy should know a great restaurant when he sees one. As the founder of a growing number of celebrated London spots, he spends much of his life on the other side of the curtain.

To paraphrase an iconic menswear savant (Shrek), good style is like an onion – it should be layered. Building outfits from the ground up with a mix of colours, textures and shapes gives you depth and versatility, turning every look into a Russian doll of handsome menswear. It also just so happens to be seasonally appropriate for autumn and winter. Just as the weather changes its mind every hour, a well-layered outfit allows you to peel back a jacket or a cardigan to unveil a new look that’s as practical and considered as the one before. Need some inspiration? The five-point cheat sheet below will guide you through taking your style – quite literally – to the next level.

“I like to think that we take an honest approach to making clothes,” Oliver Spencer says, showing MR PORTER around his design studio, just off the picturesque cobbles of Lamb’s Conduit Street in central London. “The type of person who comes to us typically knows what they’re looking for, and I want them to feel that it’s been made well and with real care and thought.”

Few menswear staples have maintained their cultural and sartorial relevance as convincingly as the trench coat. Introduced in the late 19th century out of practicality, rather than style, it was first intended as a lightweight, weatherproof outer layer for army officers, complete with signature function-first details, such as epaulettes, storm flaps, D-rings and a belted waist.

“The greatest restaurants,” Dom Hamdy reports, are “the ones that make you feel something. They are places that really facilitate human connection. You go into a restaurant, you go through the curtain. It might be an actual curtain or a figurative one, but you should feel like you’re transported away from your world.” Hamdy should know a great restaurant when he sees one. As the founder of a growing number of celebrated London spots, he spends much of his life on the other side of the curtain.