Most quilted jackets look fine on the hanger and defeat the purpose within a season. The baffles pucker, the shoulders lose their structure, the whole thing starts to resemble something you’d find in a lost property box. Which is a shame, because a well made quilted jacket is one of the most useful pieces in a cold weather wardrobe. It sits over a blazer without the bulk of a proper overcoat, layers cleanly over knitwear, and handles the kind of weather that isn’t cold enough for a heavy coat but is too cold for nothing. We’ve been specifically looking at construction quality here, the ones with a tighter quilt pattern that resists puckering, proper shoulder shaping, and fill that compresses and recovers properly rather than going flat after six months. Fit through the body matters too. A quilted jacket that bags out in the torso is doing no one any favours. These hold their shape because they were built to.