What to Wear to Royal Ascot — Without Looking Like Everyone Else

Royal Ascot is one of the most photographed dress events in the world. It is also, as a result, one of the most costumed. The combination of a strict dress code, a competitive social atmosphere and a very well-established idea of what Ascot dressing looks like has produced, over the years, a remarkably uniform crowd.

The silhouettes are all too often the same. A structured bodice, a nipped waist, a flared or A-line skirt falling just below the knee. 1950s in inspiration, silk or cloqué in fabric, colour-blocked in accessory. It is a look that has been photographed so many times, on so many women, that it has become less a fashion choice and more a costume. An expensive costume — but a costume nonetheless.

It is also, it should be said, a silhouette designed with a very specific customer in mind. The nipped waist that defines these dresses works beautifully on a slim, modestly busted frame. On anyone with a shapelier figure it does rather less — and risks tipping, unintentionally, into Jessica Rabbit territory. Which is fine if that is the look you are going for. At Ascot, it rarely is.

There is also the question of where else, exactly, these dresses are going. The answer, in most cases, is nowhere. A structured silk cloqué cocktail dress with a sweetheart neckline and a full skirt has one natural habitat: a summer racing event with a formal dress code. After Ascot it goes back in the wardrobe, where it will remain until next June, slightly too specific and too occasion-stamped to be worn anywhere that doesn't have a finishing line and a Pimm's tent.

A coat is a different proposition entirely.

A beautifully cut silk matka or bouclé coat — an A-line, a trapeze, an hourglass shape that moves rather than constrains — will stand out in the Royal Enclosure precisely because the rest of the crowd aren't wearing one. It will flatter a far wider range of figures than the nipped-waist dress silhouette, because a coat that drapes well does not require a particular waist measurement to do its job. And it will go, after Ascot, to the gallery, the lunch, the dinner, the meeting, the memorial, the autumn and the winter — earning its place in a wardrobe rather than occupying it for one afternoon a year.

A coat also solves the practical problem that no one mentions: the British summer. A dress chosen for its visual impact in sunshine becomes considerably less impressive on a cold summer's day, or by mid-afternoon when the temperature drops and the options are a pashmina or a retreat to the bar. A coat was already the answer.

At EdNerat we make occasionwear coats for events like Ascot — in lightweight silks and fine bouclés that are as elegant as anything in the enclosures and considerably more individual. They are handmade in London, available in sizes 6 to 20, with bespoke sizing and commission weaving for those who want something entirely their own.

The dress will be photographed once and put away. The coat will be worn for years.