What’s the Deal With Trench Coats?

Humphrey Bogart as world-weary bar owner Rick Blaine in Casablanca. Peter Sellers as the bumbling Inspector Clouseau in the Pink Panther films. Audrey Hepburn as socialite Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Keanu Reeves as kung-fu cyberpunk freedom fighter Neo in The Matrix. What do all these very different fictional characters have in common? You guessed it, they were all played by actors. Human ones no less, well, except for Reeves… But also, the characters all loved them some trench coat action.

Along with blue jeans, the plain white t-shirt, the leather jacket, Wayfarer sunglasses, and the Little Black Dress, the Trench Coat has become a timeless icon of 20th century fashion. Effortlessly conveying cool, sophistication, worldliness, and maybe even a hint of danger, it has remained relevant and stylish decade after decade, its classic design remaining largely unchanged for over a century. Yet as its name suggests, the trench coat started off not as an item of haute couture, but as a practical and utilitarian piece of military gear. And despite its association with the First World War, the origins of this iconic garment go back nearly a century earlier. This is the fascinating and stylish history of the trench coat.

The story of the trench coat begins in the 1820s with the invention of the first modern raincoat. Prior to this time, waterproof clothing was made either of leather or heavy fabric impregnated with linseed oil or wax known as oilcloth or oilskin. However, similar to your skin, these materials were heavy, hot, smelly, and tended to rot or lose their waterproofing over time. Enter Scottish chemist Charles Macintosh. Born in Glasgow in 1766, Macintosh started out as a store clerk, but quit at age 20 to study under the great chemist Joseph Black, and later opened his own commercial chemical dye works. In 1823, while studying potential applications for various organic compounds, Macintosh discovered that naphthalene – derived from the distillation of coal tar – could dissolve natural latex or India rubber to produce a sticky white liquid. Macintosh painted this liquid onto a piece of wool fabric and glued another layer on top, producing a lightweight, waterproof material perfect for making raincoats. The idea of rubberizing fabric was not a new one; indeed, many pre-Columbian peoples in Central and South America like the Aztecs painted natural latex rubber onto fabric to waterproof it without needing any fancy chemists degree to figure it out. Your parents must be soooo proud of your “invention” son of tosh.

While since the 1790s hydrogen balloon envelopes had been painted with a mixture of rubber and turpentine in order to gas-proof them, the naphthalene process produced a far smoother coating more suited to everyday wear. Macintosh quickly patented his manufacturing process, and on October 12, 1823 the first of these revolutionary raincoats went on sale. Known as Macintoshes – because Macintosh was apparently a narcissist, they quickly became an indispensable article of outerwear, being worn by people of all walks of life and officially issued to police officers, soldiers, railway workers, and the like. This ubiquity led to the term Mackintosh or simply Mack entering the English lexicon as a generic term for any raincoat.

Yet while they were significantly lighter than earlier waterproof garments, Mackintoshes were not without their flaws. While they certainly kept the rain out, they also kept heat and sweat in, making them uncomfortable to wear for long periods. Tailors making alterations to the coat also often punctured the waterproof layer, reducing its effectiveness, while natural oils like lanolin in the wool fabric quickly ate away at the rubber. Even worse, natural latex rubber tends to become sticky and smelly in hot weather and stiff in cold, similar to my college girlfriend.

By the 1840s, however, these problems had largely been solved by the discovery of vulcanization, a heat-treating process that stabilized rubber over a wide range of temperatures.

Nonetheless, other manufacturers began looking for superior alternatives to the Mackintosh raincoat, in the process creating the prototype for what would eventually become the modern trench coat. Today, two clothing brands lay claim to the invention of the trench coat. The first was founded by clothier John Emary, who opened a menswear shop on Regent Street in London in 1851. In 1853, Emary developed a method for producing water-repellent yarn, and began producing lighter and less odorous weather-resistant coats under the brand name Aquascutum – Latin for “needs to consult a marketer before coming up with a brand name”, or “water shield”, if you prefer.

Aquascutum “wrappers”, as they became known, became a must-have accessory for the discerning gentleman who wished to remain well-dressed while riding or hunting in inclement weather. During the Crimean War of 1853-1856, Aquascutum coats were widely purchased by British officers for protection against the damp climate of southern Russia, while at the end of the 19th Century Edward, Prince of Wales – later King Edward VII – became the company’s first royal client, resulting in Aquascutum being granted a Royal Warrant in 1897.

Meanwhile, in 1856 a young draper named Thomas Burberry founded the clothing company that still bears his name to this day. In 1879, inspired by the waterproof wool smocks worn by shepherds in his home county of Hampshire, Burberry developed a process for treating yarn or cotton thread with lanolin, then wove this this waterproofed thread into a durable, waterproof, yet breathable twill he dubbed Gabardine. Like Aquascutum wrappers, Burberry’s Gabardine coats also desperately needed a better name, but nonetheless soon became popular among the upper-class riding and hunting set, as well as explorers and other adventurers. Indeed, both Sir Ernest Shackleton’s 1907 and Roald Amundsen’s 1910 Antarctic expeditions were officially outfitted with Burberry cold-weather gear. In 1901, Burberry submitted a design to the British War Office for a standard-issue military raincoat, which was soon adopted and widely worn by British officers during the 1899-1902 Second Anglo-Boer War in South Africa.

These Burberry “weatherproofs” introduced an important feature that would become integral to the iconic look of the trench coat: its distinctive khaki colour. Throughout most of modern history, the British and Continental European armies dressed their soldiers in bright colours to increase visibility and help their men get shot. However, with the introduction of longer-ranged rifled muskets and artillery in the early 19th century, these brightly-coloured uniforms got the soldiers in them shot more. Who could have seen that coming?

By the time of the Indian Mutiny of 1857, the British began to understand it was better when their soldiers didn’t get shot. And, thus, began issuing uniforms made of a dull, mustard-brown material known as khaki – from the Urdu word for “dust coloured”, to help them blend into the countryside. Official khaki drill uniforms were first worn in combat by Indian Army troops during the 1868 Expedition to Abyssinia – modern day Ethiopia – and by the time of the Second Boer War had become standard across the entire British Army.

In 1912, Burberry introduced an improved version of its British Army “weatherproof” called the Tielocken, which incorporated nearly all the features of the modern trench coat. Made, of course, of weather-resistant Gabardine twill, the Tielocken was double-breasted with ten closing buttons and extended to just above the knee, providing maximum protection against rain while not interfering with the wearer’s mobility. Among its many weather-resistant features were an integrated waist belt, a large yoke or cape across the upper back to shed rain off the shoulders and help the individual look cooler with their cape, and buckled cuffs to prevent water from running down the sleeves while using binoculars. Distinctive “gun flaps” just below the shoulders served both as padding to absorb the recoil of a rifle and to deflect water off the shoulders, large vents allowed for ample ventilation, while a removable, checked wool lining provided additional insulation in cold weather.

Following the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914, the Tielocken became very popular for British Army officers serving in Belgium and France. Traditionally, British soldiers fighting in temperate climates were issued with greatcoats made of heavy wool serge. However, as the mobile warfare of 1914 gave way to the bloody, muddy stalemate of trench warfare, these coats became something of a liability, quickly becoming saturated with water and mud and infested with lice. The Burberry Tielocken provided a lighter-weight, water-resistant alternative, and was sized large enough to fit over a traditional greatcoat in colder weather. As the war progressed, additional features were added to further adapt the Tielocken to military use including epaulets for attaching rank insignia, a tight, button-down collar for tucking in a sealing early gas masks, large pockets for storing maps and metal D-rings on the belt for hanging map cases, binoculars, and other equipment – though not, as is sometimes claimed, swords or hand-grenades.

Yet despite its practicality, the Tielocken was not a standard-issue item, and had to be privately purchased. Nor could it be worn by just any regular soldier, being strictly reserved for Warrant Officers Class I and above. Traditionally, British Army officers were drawn from the upper classes, and were expected to privately purchase all their own equipment. This could be quite an expensive undertaking; in the 1890s, a complete British officer’s dress could cost as much as £200 – equivalent to nearly £29,000 or $37,000 today. Starting in 1914 the War Office provided officers a £50 allowance to outfit themselves, but great emphasis was still placed on maintaining their image as proper gentlemen. The Tielocken proved an ideal garment for distinguishing the officer class from the regular rank-and-file, and was in widespread use across the British Army by 1916. Meanwhile, the image of the dashing Tielocken-clad officer featured extensively in Burberry’s advertisements, playing into the public’s often romanticized view of modern warfare.

The name “trench coat”, which would forever be associated with Burberry’s creation, first appeared in a tailoring trade journal in 1916 and soon became a universal term because all the previous names were, frankly, as noted, horrible.

But also, throughout the war, manufacturers slapped the word “trench” onto any product with even a remote connection to the armed forces in order to appeal to consumers’ patriotic zeal. As a result, ordinary citizens began buying Burberry trench coats by the thousands, turning them into fashionable symbols of patriotic solidarity with the troops overseas and technically making Burberry a wartime profiteer. As is that Simon Whistler… I mean, have you seen how many videos he’s done on WWII? For shame my friend…

As military historian Peter Doyle explains:

“If it’s labeled ‘trench’ you get the sense that they’re being bought patriotically. There’s a slight hint of exploitation by the [manufacturers], but then they’re supplying what the market wanted and I think the trench coat fit into all that. Certainly people were realizing that to make it worthwhile, you needed to have this magical word on it, ‘trench’.”

Meanwhile, back on the front lines, the British Army was discovering that its dashing and distinctive officers’ uniforms – including trench coats – had an unexpected and tragic drawback: they made the wearer extremely vulnerable to snipers. Indeed, throughout the war Junior Officers died at a rate 40% higher than the enlisted ranks, with many being picked off as soon as they went “over the top” to lead their men across no-man’s-land. This high attrition rate led to a shortage of officer candidates from the upper classes, forcing the Army to relax its standards and draw increasing numbers of officers from the plebians in the lower ranks and middle classes. These “temporary gentlemen” were rightly made painfully aware of their lack of pedigree and true social standing in the dust where they belonged, and thus often turned to expensive private-purchase kit in an attempt to at least look the part of someone who wasn’t poor. Gross… In the words of Peter Doyle:

“Quite a lot of men who had no money, no standing, no basis for working and living in that social arena were suddenly walking down the street with insignia on their shoulder. If they could cut a dash with all these affectations with their uniforms, the very thing that would have gotten them picked off the front line by snipers, that was very aspirational.”

These aspirations, along with the practical utility of the garment, led thousands of newly-minted “temporary gentlemen” to shell out £3-4 for a good-quality trench coat – an extraordinary amount given that the average British soldier made just one shilling – 1/20th of a pound – per day. Meanwhile, many other armies including those of France and Belgium recognized the utility of the trench coat, and began adopting the style for their own officer corps who also apparently wanted to get shot.

On the 11th hour of the eleventh day of the 11th month in 1918, an Armistice between the Entente and Central Powers was signed in the Forest of Compiegne, finally bringing four years of bloody conflict to an end. Over the following year, hundreds of thousands of troops were demobilized and slowly started returning home. But while among the civilian population the end of the war brought with it a mass desire to leave the slaughter behind and move on, it did little to dampen the appeal of the trench coat. Indeed, many newly-demobilized officers kept their coats and continued to wear them in everyday life – both due to its inherent practicality and as a reminder of the gentlemanly status the war had temporarily granted them before thrusting them back in the mud where they belong. As a result, the trench coat acquired a sort of mystique, becoming associated with a certain image of the world-weary veteran. As Dr. Jane Tynan, professor of design history at the University of the Arts London, explains:

“The war-worn look was most attractive, not the fresh faced recruit with his spanking new uniform, but the guy who comes back. He’s got his hat at a jaunty angle… the idea was that he had been transformed, he looked like the picture of experience. I think that would certainly have given [the trench coat] a cachet; an officer returning with that sort of war-worn look and the trench coat is certainly part of that image.”

But it was Hollywood which truly cemented the trench coat as an iconic fashion accessory, the style being prominently sported by the likes of Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, and The Big Sleep; and Marlene Dietrich in A Foreign Affair. Whether worn by the hardboiled gumshoe, the sinister villain, or the alluring femme fatale, the trench coat oozed mystery, danger, and sheer cool, and became a staple of the Film Noir genre.

Meanwhile, though the trench coat had originally been developed as a garment for Army officers, its military service was starting to come to an end. Officers in many armies continued to wear trench coats throughout the 1920s and 30s and into the Second World War, but by the end of the conflict they had largely been supplanted by shorter, less restrictive garments such as the American M1941 and M1943 Field Jacket; the British Denison parachutist’s smock; the Jacket, Field, Wool, Olive Drab or “Ike Jacket”popularized by Allied Supreme Commander General Dwight Eisenhower; and the leather B3 bomber jacket famously worn by American general George S. Patton. Thankfully for fashion designers, however, the style had already made the jump to the civilian sphere, where it now enjoyed a thriving second life far removed from its military roots.

And while Burberry had dominated the trench coat market during the Great War and the interwar period, by the 1950s competitor Aquascutum had come from behind, becoming the official supplier of stylish trench coats to the likes of Winston Churchill; Cary Grant; Charles, Prince of Wales; and Prince Rainier of Monaco. They also supplied the windproof Wyncol fabric used by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay during their historic 1953 ascent of Mount Everest. And as the decades passed, Hollywood was always at hand to inject new life into the venerable trench coat, with both Burberry and Aquascutum examples famously appearing in such classic films such as 1961’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s, 1979’s Kramer vs Kramer, and 1987’s Wall Street. Few other clothing items have achieved such broad and unisex appeal, or weathered the decades virtually unchanged.

Today, Burberry continues to manufacture its classic trench coat much as it has for over 100 years, with each coat comprising 80 different pieces and taking four hours and 120 different operations to stitch together. But while purists will gladly pay up to $6,000 for a Burberry original because the idea of impoverished children who don’t have food to eat for want of $1 makes them happy, the trench coat itself is no longer the exclusive preserve of the rich and famous, with dozens of manufacturers offering hundreds of different versions to suit any style or budget. And year after year, fashion designers come up with fresh new spins on the trench coat, reinterpreting the time-tested design in different fabrics, colours, and patterns, ensuring that this classic style – like the very concept of cool it exudes – will never go out of fashion.

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