Perhaps watching so many French films – by Éric Rohmer, Jean-Luc Godard, Agnes Varda, Jacques Rivette – during my college days had something to do with it. For me, they have that quintessential French “Je ne sais quoi.” Films with great dialogue are an addiction for me, ones that I treasure endlessly and can rewatch over and over again. And who could ever forget Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly, and her iconic beige trench coat, immortalized in the final scene of Breakfast at Tiffany’s? Or Bogart in Casablanca?
The History
However, the credit for the trench coat’s invention belongs completely to the British. The design evolved from a bulky 19th-century military rainproof utility garment into a modern civilian fashion icon.
The invention of the trench coat is claimed by two British luxury clothing manufacturers, Burberry and Aquascutum, with Aquascutum’s claim dating back to the 1850s. Thomas Burberry invented gabardine fabric in 1879 and submitted a design for an Army officer’s raincoat to the United Kingdom War Office in 1901, making the trench coat well over 100 years old.
Trench Coat in Movies
No other piece of outerwear has been so heavily utilized on-screen. From providing film noir’s detectives with their uniform of choice to giving Holly Golightly her raincoat for that climatic downpour kiss, the trench is the multipurpose piece wardrobe departments have reached for since the golden age of cinema.
Bogart delivering the classic “Here’s looking at you, kid” line wouldn’t be quite the same without it.
– Vogue, on the Trenchcoat’s greatest moments on film.
Why the trench coat is so unique? Because for me, it feels like a quiet sanctuary, wrapping me in a sense of calm containment. Wearing it feels like holding myself in space. Its clean lines, structure, fabric itself and multifunctionality are simply wondrous.
It is a rare constant in an ever changing contemporary culture. A good trench coat never looks brand new, and it never looks old, it is simply timeless. And that….is hard to achieve.
Read the interesting history of the trench coat by the Smithsonian. There is so much good information about this iconic item.