What to Wear in Quebec City in October

October hands you two trips. Environment and Climate Change Canada puts Jean Lesage at 11.3°C by day and 2.4°C at night, with 115.8mm falling across about 14 days, and the agency counts a day wet at a fifth of a millimetre. Colour peaks in the second and third weeks, and Canadian Thanksgiving lands on Monday 12 October, which fills Île d'Orléans and the road toward Charlevoix. Then the back half arrives: freezing nights, and wind off the St Lawrence onto the Dufferin Terrace with nothing in the way. A quilted jacket takes that combination. Wool absorbs the shower, stays heavy all afternoon, then passes the wind straight through the weave.

The capsule

1. 
   01

   Forest-green quilted jacket, hip length

   Fourteen days of this month have something falling on them, and the wind on the Dufferin Terrace arrives straight off the St Lawrence, so the outer layer has two jobs at once. A quilted jacket does both: the shell sheds a shower, the quilting stops wind, and light insulation covers 11°C / 52°F without cooking you at noon. Hip length matters because Upper Town is a climb, and a cropped jacket leaves a wet band at the waist every time you take the stairs.

2. 
   02

   Cream chunky-rib crew knit

   One knit carries the whole month if it is heavy enough. Afternoons run 11°C / 52°F and nights 2°C / 36°F, a nine-degree drop you close with wool rather than with a second coat. Cream against forest green is the Charlevoix palette rather than a city one, and a boxy chunky rib takes the flannel overshirt over the top without binding at the shoulder.

3. 
   03

   Green and cream plaid wool-flannel overshirt

   Snap this over the crew from about the 20th, when the nights start reaching freezing. Forest, grey and cream check in wool flannel is the one pattern in the capsule, and it is what Saint-Roch actually wears in October: shirt-jacket, not tailoring. Two flap chest pockets take a phone and a ferry ticket, and it slides under the quilted jacket on the coldest evening without bulking up the arm.

4. 
   04

   Dark indigo straight-leg jeans, cropped at the ankle

   Dark indigo, straight, no distressing and no fading, because splash off wet cobbles reads as texture on dark denim and as a stain on anything paler. The cropped hem clears the puddle at the bottom of Côte de la Montagne instead of wicking it up. This is the walking bottom for the drier first half of the month.

5. 
   05

   Mid-brown wide-wale corduroy trousers

   Your second bottom, and the reason the capsule carries two. Denim soaked at four in the afternoon is still damp the next morning in a city with 14 wet days and short October sun, so you rotate. Wide-wale corduroy runs warmer than denim at the same weight, the pile hides a splash, and mid-brown sits between the green jacket and the brown boot rather than fighting either.

6. 
   06

   Brown plain-toe leather boots, rubber lug sole

   Upper Town is a stair city. Côte de la Montagne is a graded hill, the Breakneck Stairs drop to Petit-Champlain, and the Plains of Abraham stay wet grass all month, so a rubber lug sole grips all three where a smooth leather sole slides. Plain toe and smooth leather rather than suede, because suede does not survive 14 days of precipitation with no drying window between them.

7. 
   07

   Oatmeal long wool scarf

   The piece that does the work of a heavier coat. Wound twice under the jacket collar it closes the throat gap where the wind finds you on the Terrace, and it comes off in one motion inside a Rue Saint-Jean dining room. Oatmeal rather than a dark neutral, because the capsule is already green, indigo and brown, and the scarf is where the cream in the knit comes back.

8. 
   08

   Small brown leather backpack

   Both hands belong on the handrail. The Breakneck Stairs and the steps up from Place Royale are steep and wet, the funicular queue runs long on Thanksgiving weekend, and a shoulder bag catches the rail on every turn. A small leather backpack sits flat under the jacket, swallows the overshirt when the afternoon warms, and carries a bottle of Île d'Orléans cider home without a paper bag.

A suggested look — forest-green quilted jacket, cream chunky ribbed sweater, dark indigo straight jeans, brown leather lug boots, oatmeal wool scarf.

What to avoid

• A wool overcoat — it soaks, then the river wind goes straight through it
• Suede boots or a suede bag — about 14 days with precipitation and no drying window
• Heels or smooth soles — a graded hill and the worn stone of the Breakneck Stairs
• Booking the first week for peak colour — the region turns in weeks two and three
• Packing from the December page — no -11°C / 12°F nights here; layers, not a parka