The one item that will give your AW18 wardrobe serious style kudos?

It’s the humble hood. This year, elevating your AW18 wardrobe from cool to hot (excuse the irony) is as simple as throwing a hooded top under your jacket or over your sweater. Brands from Burberry Prorsum and Dries Van Noten to Fashion East and Preen were among the heavy-hitting labels that marched the utilitarian staple down their AW18 runways. Where premium brands go, the rest of us try to follow, though that’s not always easy. So hurrah for a practical, inexpensive, cool-girl micro-trend that we can all buy into (literally; you’ll find a hoodie to suit your price range whatever it is). Here are my favourites, from premium to pocket-friendly.

This piece by Beyoncé’s Ivy Park label offers more than a humble hood. It also offers a beautifully draped scarf-come-cardigan that will allow you to reinvent it with different outfits again and again. I would wear this constantly at weekends.

Hooded drape scarf, Ivy Park, €55 at topshop.com

What happens when you combine a basic utilitarian staple with ultra-glam sequins? You get this showstopper piece from Zara. Great style is all about contrasts, and this top delivers. I love how it’s been styled simply with a pair of denims. It’s always more interesting if you make sequins work for day. It creates a look that’s unexpected and modern, which is how we all want to look, isn’t it?

Sequinned hooded top, €39.95 at Zara

We don’t usually associate the word sexy with hoodie, but designer Dion Lee has taken two completely disparate ideas and made them work as one. This is a great statement piece that will add a real point of difference to your AW18 wardrobe.

Open-back hoodie, Dion Lee, €93 (was €310) at net-a-porter.com

This athleisure-style dress in a potent shade of red is a real statement piece for the new season. Layered up with an overlong cardigan and a longline jacket, it will look seriously cool come autumn/winter.

Long hooded dress, €20 (was €40) at monki.com