You could make a case for the polo coat; but not many of those are available cheap on ebay.

Some great Crombies and tweed coats are though.

Still have my Chipp bespoke Warm from about 1990-no epaulets-but WARM it is!

It seems to be halfway between a houndstooth Harrington and an early 1970s UK tweed blouson. They were around with fair isle, wide lapel suits etc. They were a style that still looks good today. Not huge at the time skimpy leather bomber jackets were the big thing.

I think the tie idea works. It is like the answer to the suit and no tie.

'The British Warm' - I'd almost forgotten the name. Many years ago in another life, I was a young traffic cop. This was well before all the bright yellow reflective stuff came in, motorcycle PCs wore jodphurs then. One of the bonuses of getting on the traffic department was that you were issued with extra kit and the most highly prized item was the British Warm coat.  This was a knee length double breasted coat, dark navy of course, which looked far more clean cut and smart than the ungainly gaberdines and gannexes that the ordinary cops had.  Plus it was .... warm.  We thought we were the DBs cruising about in the Triumph 2.5 PI patrol car, wearing the British Warms, real knights of the road!

Anyway I must be off as Countdown is on in a minute and it'll be time for my hot milk.

Thanks Bishop. Well, the least one can say is, it does not come cheap!!!

Baron of Piccadilly used to be the place to buy a British warm coat. They displayed one in the window a couple of years ago. It was around £200, much cheaper than New & Lingwood. There were plenty of bargains to be had in that quaint place.

Baron, sadly, was another victim of the Crown Estates redevelopment of that part of Piccadilly and Jermyn Street. Herbie Frogg, not my taste, has gone for good too. Bates has been acquired by Hilditch & Key and relocated to the larger H&K shop. Only Trumper's, temporarily in smaller premises in Duke of York Street, will be back.

seen the stuff... Not very impressed I must say though...

just to confuse things, i read somewhere recently that toggle coats were sold as "british short warmers" in the US sometime during the boom yrs.