Autumn Jackets in Berlin for People Who Like Layering

Autumn in Berlin is basically three temperatures in one day.

You leave the house needing a jacket, carry it around in the afternoon and put it back on before dinner. Which is annoying, but also probably the best time of year if you actually like clothes.

You can wear a shirt under a jacket, a sweater under an overshirt, a vest over something else and keep adding layers until the weather eventually decides that autumn is over.

So this isn't really a guide to the warmest jackets we have. That's what the winter jacket guide is for. These are the pieces for the months when getting dressed still involves a little negotiation with the weather.

Denim, but not really the normal denim jacket

A denim jacket is probably one of the easiest answers to autumn. Which also means there are a lot of very normal denim jackets in the world already.

ATELIER J.SANTANA takes denim somewhere else.

The bombers are made from upcycled denim and repurposed materials, with several pieces combining denim with used kimono fabric. The shape is familiar enough to throw over almost anything, but the construction makes them feel much further away from the standard blue jacket you already know.

That's useful in autumn. You don't necessarily need the jacket to do everything. Sometimes you just need one layer that makes the rest of the outfit more interesting.

The overshirt exists for exactly this weather

There is a point every September when a shirt feels optimistic and a proper coat feels slightly dramatic.

This is where overshirts earn their keep.

The Green & Navy Checked Overshirt by a.ACHAT is light enough to wear like a jacket at the beginning of autumn, but loose enough to start adding knitwear underneath once it gets colder.

I like pieces like this because they don't really belong to one temperature. You just change what happens underneath them.

When the light jacket starts needing some help

Later in autumn, fabric starts mattering a little more.

The multicolour 4FRF jacket is made from a wool-blend fabric and sits somewhere between a light jacket and something you can start building a colder-weather outfit around.

It still isn't a January coat. That's fine. Not every jacket has to make it all the way to January.

Autumn dressing becomes much easier once you stop expecting one piece to solve September, October, November and winter at the same time.

Leather jacket season is short, which might be why we like it

There is usually a relatively small window in Berlin when a leather jacket is exactly enough.

Before that it's too warm. A few weeks later you're trying to convince yourself that a scarf will somehow solve everything.

The reworked leather jacket by Adam Frost starts with a second-hand black leather jacket and adds hand-painted white acrylic. It's still an easy black layer, just much less anonymous.

And because it is a reworked existing piece, the marks and paint are part of the point rather than something the jacket is trying to hide.

Denim can also become a coat

If a short denim jacket starts feeling a little too optimistic, the James Coat by Azul Ballestero takes the same material and stretches the idea much further.

It's a long blue upcycled denim coat with a belt. You get more coverage without immediately moving into padded winter-coat territory.

Which is a pretty useful place to be in late autumn, especially if you still want whatever you're wearing underneath to have some room.

The best autumn jacket is probably the one you can keep changing

I don't think there is one correct jacket for a Berlin autumn.

Half of the point is being able to change what you wear underneath it. A T-shirt in September, a shirt a week later, knitwear in October and eventually enough layers that you have to admit winter is coming.

That's why oversized bombers, denim, overshirts and jackets with a little room tend to make sense. They let the outfit change without making the jacket useless as soon as the temperature moves five degrees.

And once layering stops being enough, that's probably the moment to move on to our guide to winter jackets in Berlin .

Independent autumn jackets in Berlin

A lot of the outerwear at GRÜNWASCHEN comes from independent designers working in small quantities. Some pieces are upcycled, some start with second-hand clothing and others are simply made in quantities that make them feel much more personal than something produced by the thousand.

Autumn is probably the easiest season to experiment with that. The jacket doesn't have to be armour yet. It can still just be a really good part of the outfit.

You can also read more about upcycled fashion in Berlin or discover independent fashion designers in Berlin .