Coat, £199, Hobbs

Twenty years ago, Hobbs was one of the more successful brands on the British high street. As youthful Topshop and Zara began to dominate the aesthetic, women over 40 found themselves turning to the store for well-made work skirts, flattering dresses with sleeves and pockets, velvet jackets and accessories you could take to a corporate event or the office. 

And then tastes changed but Hobbs didn’t. There has been a major shift in the way we live and work, and yet the company’s designers still seem to believe that women in their 50s, 60s and 70s are spending their lives going to garden parties or chairing meetings in smart suits. Even before the pandemic moved much of our professional life online, there was a steady casualisation of the office, with pretty silk skirts and colourful dresses that could be reworn on weekends replacing the more formal corporate attire of the Nineties and early Noughties. 

Today, most women – whether they are 30 or 60 – are looking for the sort of flexible, comfortable, flattering clothing that they can wear to a meeting in the morning, a park walk in the afternoon and a casual dinner in the evening.