If you're wondering which coat to buy this fall, shearling is back in all shapes and styles. Everyone did a shearling in some form or another. And it seemed that there were a lot of capes and vests. Bill Blass did a combo shearling vest with cape-ish sleeves in dark chocolate. Akris showed a cute gray/green vest worn over a dress with tights that was the winner in his collection. Oscar de la Renta went short too: with a shearling evening cape-style coat. It was ladylike and elegant: two words you don't usually associate with shearling. All the shearlings in de la Renta's collection were lean, cropped and tailored and paired with simple, full-leg trousers.

Phillip Lim dropped the hem to about knee-length and spoke about wanting to inject some "street elegance" into his popular year-old 3.1 line. His pretty but also cool collection included a shearling box coat trimmed with rope beading à la Chanel. He described this sixties-style coat as "rough, yet soft."

There were other cropped attempts at Hermès and Wunderkind, where collars were trimmed with mink and beaver. Hermes riding-style collection including a gorgeous beaver trimmed shearling poncho/cape and a creamy-luxe shearling pilot's jacket with large creamy shearling lapels. Perfect for Beryl Markham!

Otherwise, if you like loden, you'll be able to find lots of forest green shearlings this fall. Valentino's green shearling short-cropped military coat looked similar to Ralph Lauren's style jackets. Lauren brought loden shearling coat after loden shearling coat down the runway. One cape with a fur lining looked scrumptious and he showed a beautiful green shearling with brown shearling lining. All of these were worn with loden suede riding pants and riding boots. His theme for the show was a Highlands hunting trip - so imagine lots of glen plaids, cashmere jodhpurs, sweeping carriage coats, and swaggering horse-blanket capes. It was inspired by what he called a "modern shooting party. All of the shows, from Hermes to Ralph Lauren made me want to go off and ride a horse, wearing one of their shearlings of course.

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