the whimsical elegance of the scarf coat

no dupes, no lookalikes, just vibes

There’s a Toteme coat I first started seeing online early last year that I couldn’t stop thinking about. At $1130, it is firmly out of my budget, and my already robust selection of outerwear would have made it a difficult purchase to justify even on deep, deep sale or purchased secondhand (there are several on the RealReal right now.) It seems like this coat was popular enough to be copied en masse, as cheap dupes abound online and were popping up in all of my Etsy and eBay searches. Those versions are suspiciously inexpensive, made from acrylic or polyester, and shipping mostly from China. Super sketchy and depressing!

The real one above, and one of the dupes below.

I was finally cured of my desire for this specific Toteme coat after encountering it in real life. I passed by a girl in the Fulton Street station wearing it in grey, and, while it could have been one of the aforementioned dupes, the rest of her outfit indicated to me that it was likely real. The coat wasn’t as heavy as I’d pictured, didn’t hang well (which can happen with felted wool), and looked like it was holding every wrinkle and fold. The last straw was when I rechecked the fabric composition online: a wool blend? It’s only 12% polyester, but for over a thousand dollars, I’m expecting 100% wool.

However, the idea of a scarf coat still had a hold on me, perhaps because “winter accessories” is the category of belongings I misplace most often. The number of hats and scarves I’ve left behind on bar hooks, bus seats, etc. makes the idea of a built-in scarf very appealing. If I’m leaving my coat behind, I’ve got bigger problems!

Ergo… an assortment of vintage coats with built-in scarves, all $150 or under, most 100% wool. A couple of them resemble the Toteme coat, but there are none I would classify as lookalikes. However, there’s a whimsical elegance to the built-in scarf, and who would object to a little more whimsy and elegance in the dead of winter? Not I.

camel coat, $90 (Etsy)
red wool coat, size L, $65 (Depop)
brown wool coat, size 10, $42 (eBay)
red wool coat, size S, $70 (eBay)

blue/green plaid mohair coat, size M/L, $127 (Etsy)
purple/green plaid coat, size M, $125 (Etsy)
tan and brown two-tone coat, $98, (Etsy)
burgundy herringbone coat, size S, $60 (eBay) (ships from UK)

grey patterned coat, $150, size M (Depop)
grey boucle coat, $35 (eBay) (ships from UK)
grey two-tone coat, size M, $147 (eBay)
grey coat with black scarf, size L, $148 (Depop)

grey coat with red scarf, size L, $98 (Etsy)
grey coat with red scarf, size M, $50 (eBay) — looks like the same coat as the one linked above!
grey/black wool cashmere coat, size 12, $38 (eBay) (ships from UK)

Anyway, here I am below earlier this week in one of my favorite coats, something I thrifted in 2015? with a fake double layer detail that gives it a very similar feel to some of the grey coats above. (And it has iced coffee pockets—i.e. straight-across pockets you can safely store an iced coffee in while you’re standing on the subway.) Maybe I’ll search for some coats similar to this one for a later newsletter.

As always, a reminder (for myself, and whoever else needs to hear this): The joy is also in the find, and not solely in the acquisition. But also—let me know if you buy any of them! :)

<3 E

Postscript: This search jolted loose a memory of something similar I owned many years ago. It was a felted wool cape, unlined, missing a label or fabric tag, from a vintage store on Montrose between Humboldt and Bushwick Ave, around the corner from my first apartment. Light tan, almost yellow, it had that same embroidered stitch as the Toteme coat in dark brown around the edges, and several embroidered and appliquéd brown deer on the front, close to the hem. If you knew me in my very early days in New York, you likely saw me wearing this cape at some point, usually with a thrifted floral dress, ripped black tights, and a pair of purple leather Justin boots from a vintage store on 3rd Avenue. I don’t know what ended up happening to this cape—I suspect it was collateral damage in the Bedbug Wars of 2009-10. I don’t even want it back, but sometimes I dream about what it would be like to have an archival closet, where I could revisit the pieces I really loved from ten or fifteen years ago and remember what I was doing around that time. (In this case, probably drinking wine on the G train and poring over Craigslist missed connections with my roommates.)