Esqualo is a Dutch clothing label, and this autumn it has arrived almost entirely in merlot. That deep wine red runs through the knitwear, the blazers, the houndstooth trousers and a mink faux fur coat, with cacao brown and a cold lake blue behind it. Knitwear is the bulk of what we have taken, most of it carrying some surface detail: gems, studs, argyle, a scattered diamond stitch.
We took Esqualo because it does colour without asking you to commit to a whole look. A merlot ruched sleeve blazer sits over the black pleated trousers or over your own jeans, and the houndstooth blazer with its pink diamond detail is the one piece here that nobody will miss.
The coats are the part worth singling out. Two teddy coats, one longline in sand and one reversible in cacao, and mink faux fur in merlot and grey. A cacao faux leather jacket and a reversible leopard print gilet sit with them. Elsewhere the trousers cover houndstooth, black pleated modal and a pull-on side stripe, the jeans are cacao brown, and the tops run to satin, lace hem and metallic.
Esqualo designs from the Netherlands and sells through independent boutiques rather than its own shops, so it is not a name you will meet on every high street. We carry it at our Fleet, Hampshire boutique and online, down to the matching cacao knitted scarf and hat. If you have been wearing the same black blazer for three winters, the merlot one is the argument against it.
