Paul Smith

To the long list of oxymoronic garments produced by our novelty-desperate fashion complex—corduroy culottes! Uggs in Malibu!—now add sleeveless coats. “They look great!” enthused Kasia Steńczyk, 27, a special-events intern at the Brooklyn Academy of Music who owns a whopping ten of ’em. “I just make sure I have a long-sleeved shirt under, or very long gloves. You can have a lot of long cute and diverse gloves with that type of coat.”

What’s the latest thing in fashion these days? Buying stuff that requires you to buy … more stuff. Think iPod accessories, those little clip-on gew-gaws now available for Hermes Birkins, and these baffling arm-exposing coats that appeared on the Marc Jacobs fall ’06 runway and have been spotted everywhere from high-end stores like Opening Ceremony and Miss Sixty to Forever 21, H&M and Club Monaco. “This silhouette is extremely versatile,” said Wichy Hassan, co-founder and creative director of the Sixty Group. “Wear it open for a stylishly casual look on warmer days or zip it up when the temperature drops!”  read more »