The difficulty of buying coats in any month other than August

Tonight I spent a fruitless evening searching for a new coat. Spring/summer might be coming, but it's cold out there, and my black wool/cashmere beast is getting rather beaten up with being worn every day.

The problem is, I want these:






[Images: SoniaRykiel.com]

Sadly I can only afford these:




[Images: Stylefinder.com]

And a swift recon mission around Oxford Street's main stores surrendered nothing except a pleasant but average Zara trench that in desperation I probably would have snapped up, had a rival shopper not beat me to the last size S. Curses.

The search goes on. Sigh.