Duffel Coats

I have owned a couple of duffel coats in my time: a nice deep green one that I wore in my early 20s and a chocolate brown one that currently hangs on my peg, but rarely gets worn because it is a little too big for me. I am not the only person to don the duffel however; many have gone before me. These are the top ten style icons that have chosen the thick Belgian wool to keep themselves warm and looking good simultaneously.

1. Paddington Bear

The Peruvian bear's decision to leave home with a battered suitcase, an outlandish hat, wellington boots and a duffel coat was controversial, especially when the wind was up, but whether Paddi wears his pale blue or deep red number, he always looks like the King of Bears who would have Winnie the Pooh in a fight any day of the week.

2. Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery

The British general hit the headlines when he led his army to victory in the Battle of El Alamein in the Second World War. His distinctive duffel coat distinguished him from his troops and earned him the nickname 'Monty Coat'.

3. Michael Foot

The leader of the Labour Party between 1980-1983 received much criticism for choosing to wear his duffel coat to the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday. People thought his informality showed a lack of respect, but The Sunday Times appreciates his individualism: "Foot's duffel... represents a time when politicians weren't afraid to be themselves". In the modern era of media spin and personal stylists we may never see the duffel coat creating static electricity on Westminster coat-pegs again.

4. Liam Gallagher

Liam's apish swagger was completed by the duffel coat whipping around his knees. The Oasis frontman has recently started his own fashion label: Pretty Green Black, and the duffel coat is an expensive potential purchase.

5. Britney Spears

Britney's loose sandy-brown number is for days when she wants to communicate disaffected nonchalance to the paparazzi, which is surely a better look than desperate fragility.

6. Cheryl Cole

Cheryl's snugly-fitting pink coat has reopened the duffel-door to the modern British woman.

7. Dudley Moore

Cuddly Dudley has been known to wear a duffel beneath his unkempt mop.

8. Alex Kapranos

Lead singer and guitarist of Franz Ferdinand's chestnut brown number is perhaps an attempt to find a place for himself in the rock and roll duffel dynasty.

9. Jonathan Creek

Jonathan Creek has only ever been a programme that I will watch as a last option, but whilst the plot delivers a merely watchable hour, the duffel coat that clings to his back cements the detective's spot in the style list.

10. Bing Crosby

Duffel coated musicians are not a modern thing: Bing and Perry Como caused kerfuffles with their duffels in the 1930s and 40s.