FASHION:LIKE ANY SOCIABLE party-goer, beige is a good mixer, with a seasoned ability to blend in. It's a great companion to other shades, to different textures and accessories. It can look subtle and sophisticated. It lets colours and patterns take the limelight.

Such quiet, hard-wearing camouflage qualities made the Burberry mac a classic sartorial item, as timeless now as it was when Bogart propelled it into fashion legend. Now we’re all entrenched, so to speak. Male and female alike fall for its charms and it’s the season’s best buy.

Basically a double-breasted belted coat with square shoulders and epaulettes, it was designer Christopher Bailey’s great skill that made a heritage item cool and updated the Burberry look without overloading the clichés. To keep it sharp, rein in the trench with a doubled leather belt, or leave it ajar to show layering. Mix tonal variations of beige with accessories, as stylist Mark Andrew Kelly shows here. “It’s a great colour for Irish skin tones, but people are very shy of it,” says Kelly. “I wanted to dispel that image. It looks great with white, with chocolate brown, with black and even silver grey.”