The puffer jacket earned its bad reputation honestly. Enormous quilted slabs of nylon that made you look like you’d borrowed your coat from a much larger person, or worse, from a piece of outdoor equipment. Warm, yes. Worth wearing in public, less so. The good news is that the category has moved on considerably and there are now options that do the thermal work without adding a stone to your silhouette.

We’ve been looking specifically at jackets where the fill weight is high enough to actually perform in cold weather, but the construction is tight enough to keep the profile close to the body. Channel quilting, lightweight but genuinely warm down, and cuts that sit properly over a midlayer without looking inflated. Colour matters too. The ones in here lean towards shades that work with more than one outfit.

A puffer jacket that looks good is not a compromise. It is just a better puffer jacket.