Return of the cape

I'm on the tube and everyone is staring. I'm wearing what Vogue calls "this season's ultimate throw on" – the cape. Mine, from H&M, is sleeveless with a leather collar and double-breasted buttons. They're set to be a hit – with both sexes. I'm off to gauge reactions at the home of capery – the Sherlock Holmes museum on Baker Street, London. "It looks like what you'd wear at a girls' boarding school," says Francis Dibben, an accountant. "I'd buy it – for my daughter," shouts a builder. Even Stuart Stoter, a cape-wearing museum guide, is lukewarm. "Mine's much more classically styled." Then, at last, I meet a cape evangelist. "It's beautiful," says US tourist Michael Caplan. "The flow, the cut. I can see it catching on."