With the end of winter, my love affair with the puffer jacket is officially over. I hadn't thought of buying one until my friend Emilie appeared at my door, her olive skin glowing against her new sulphur-yellow puffer. She looked fabulous. The next day I snapped up the last puffer in the same yellow at my closest mall.I wore it every day. On the school run, for walks, to work, to bed.Then at lunch one day I noticed that every other woman in the restaurant was wearing the same jacket.I stopped wearing mine. I hated it. I had to pack it away, I couldn't look at it.The jacket was surely the biggest-selling item of the past season.Vogue calls the jacket the "ultimate frenemy of any winter wardrobe . an extra layer of bulk is the last thing anyone should add to her look - it's just hard to make it look sophisticated".But the advice has been ignored. By me too. I fell in with the puffer crowd. I was like everyone else. I don't want to fall into the category to which women of a certain age, class and race belong.''But you are that woman," said a friend smiling mischievously.''You have the kids, the car, the school and the house. And now you have the puffer jacket."I have had to accept it. And since I had reclaimed the puffer I looked for the good in it, beyond its ubiquity and its unsophisticated utilitarianism.It's comfortable. So much so that once it's on, it's seldom necessary to take it off. It's warm: you don't need to feel the cold ever again.And it can be stylish. Fashion has embraced an exaggerated silhouette, and utilitarian parkas aren't looking quite so oversized any more. In fact, ugly is so "'in" that it's quite acceptable to wear something puffy.And designers have chicly reinterpreted the clumsy puffer. Have you seen what Rag & Bone, Peserico, Zadig & Voltaire, Moncler etc are doing with the jacket?I feel okay about falling in love with it again, and one of the best uses for it this summer will be as an all-purpose beach pillow...