This 100% Merino wool snood by All Saints should be very soft. And looks good!

£35 from Allsaintsshop.co.uk

When first cold winds blow you need a light scarf as this linen one! This grey scarf is 192 cm length and made in 100% linen.

£17.90 from Dress-for-less (UK)

Sale Price: £8 (Was £15) from Topman

Sale Price: £84 Was £139) from Oki-ni

Traditionally, a tagelmust is a sort of turban worn by the Touareg to protect themselves from the wind, sand, sun or cold. They wrap it around their head and neck. In our somewhat calmer countries, we use them mainly for protecting the neck. The tagelmust is somewhere between a shawl and a scarf: it’s longer and thicker than a shawl, but lighter than a scarf. They’re usually made of cotton.

My advice: choose a tagelmust of a decent size so you can wrap it around your neck at least twice. You can wear it two different ways according to the weather: tight around the neck on windy days, or looser, more fashionable than functional.

To find one, you can either try department stores (I bought one from le Printemps last winter), certain clothing stores (such as Agnès B), and the Internet (such as eBay as seen below):

€6.90 from www.ebay.fr

€35 from www.agnesb.fr

The first men’s collection from Mango came out in March. I wasn’t all that interested at the time. Until yesterday, after having lunch with Lola, when I went to have a look in Mango Opéra on her recommendation.

Of course, Mango, for a lot of us, is a girls’ shop which we’ve only been into with our girlfriends or little sisters – until now. And Mango, as you probably also know, is one of Zara’s main competitors: they are both internationally-successful Spanish stores.

Back to my story. So I go into Mango, I ask an assistant the way and she directs me to the back of the store. As is often the case with this type of large unisex store, the men’s section is a lost little island in the middle of a vast ocean of women’s items. And it doesn’t take long to look around it all! If I hadn’t come with the idea of writing an article about it, as I was quite busy, I would probably have left straightaway.

But I decided to take a second, closer, look at what I had barely glanced at the first time. And what seemed, overall, fairly ordinary. To see what the clothes are about, you need to look at the label. This is the way I always work: I look at the price, the material, and only then do I unfold the garment to look at the shape.

And I very quickly made 2 conclusions: it’s all fairly expensive (still comparing it to Zara) but using better fabric! Let’s take the example of the jumpers. You might have seen the H+M jumper that Tony talked about in September, and you’ve probably been and looked at Zara jumpers in store. If you look closely, you’ll see that the jumpers are mainly made of man-made fibres.

Au contraire, a nice surprise from Mango: their jumpers are mostly made from wool. That’s unusual! Some are even 100% wool or 100% cashmere like the jumper above. Another example: their scarves. They are also more expensive than usual for a high-street store but with a much more classy touch: they’re 100% wool!

This men’s collection, called “He by Mango”, also contains jackets and shirts. They seemed good, but nothing special (though I admit I was in a rush and didn’t look at them for very long).

However, I spent longer looking at their black, slightly waxed jeans. They didn’t look too bad for €65! I’ll go back and try a pair on and let you know…And I have since discovered the entire HE collection is available online from www.mangoshop.com. In fact, that’s where I found the pictures to go with this article.

I imagine some of you have also been curious enough to go to Mango, and maybe even try some of their clothes! What did you think?

• Official website: www.mango.com
• Online store: www.mangoshop.com
• See the topic on Mango HE in the forum (in French)

And to finish off nicely, here’s an accessory that we don’t speak of often enough, which is a mistake, as scarves are very practical when it’s cold, and can even be rather attractive! -Yes!

And to prove it, here’s a brown one with contrasting stripes from Superdry (the English brand with the vintage style that doesn’t just make polos and t-shirts !).

As they say: Keep warm and eat porridge (it’ll stick to your bones)! -And porridge is pretty old school, man…

£14.99 from Cult