The Over-Under

    Prior to commercialized aviation, capacious tweed overcoats and flowing raglan-sleeved things were considered sensible items to wear for travel.  They acted as wearable blankets, I suppose, protecting the person (and his clothes) within from the blasts of cold air at each stop and the jostling of the platform.  A few months ago I was reminded why these otherwise handsome garments are no longer just the thing for today’s traveler: a tall fellow swept into the crowded cabin of our commuter jet, the folds of his caped balmacaan nearly collecting several pre-flight cocktails and a small child before he finally found his seat.  Once there, he and the crew puzzled over where to store the monstrosity.  It was unceremoniously folded and jammed beneath a seat.  He was silly for wearing it, but generally speaking, I can commiserate; travel today limits considerably good choices, and outerwear takes the greatest casualties.  

    Lightweight technical gear is one solution, but finding an example that covers the rear, let alone  extends several inches below a jacket line, is difficult.  The other problem with technical jackets is they derive warmth from some sort of filler—wadding, down or, I was amazed to recently discover, polystyrene beads.  While not as cumbersome as heavy wool, volume of any description is just unwelcome in a cramped cabin.  My solution is an exercise in true compromise: I travel most often with the original technical gear—the waxed cotton jacket.  A Barbour Beaufort, to be precise.  This model is raglan sleeved, unlined, water resistant and what it lacks in real warmth, it makes up for in its ability to easily layer over anything from heavy fisherman’s sweaters to tweed odd jackets.  Its most valuable property, however, is that it is unprecious, looking as good rumpled and battered as it does freshly reconditioned.  I wouldn’t flinch if a sullen flight attendant should screw it up into a ball and use it to mop up a spilled Bloody Mary, let alone cram it into an overhead bin.  

    The other, considerably more imaginative configuration poses a fundamental question: what is outerwear?  A tweed jacket was, and often still is, outerwear.  And what about sweaters, garments developed to be worn for outdoor pursuits?  Many might ordinarily pack both, but the smartest packers do so with an eye toward creating a traveling wardrobe that serves in lieu of proper outerwear.  A fourteen ounce tweed jacket worn over a shirt and knit serves well in temperatures down to freezing with scarf, gloves and hat added to the rig.  And as long as we are playing fast and loose with categories, another more progressive option lurks: the lightweight technical vest.  If it is slim enough and not too puffy it, too, can be worn beneath a tweed jacket.  I’ve done this; it is as warm as any proper outerwear.  

    I perhaps overstated the difficulty of traveling with an overcoat.  I have done it with a covert cloth coat.  It does require a certain amount of strategic folding and stashing, but it can be done.  Perhaps what is really needed is the right degree of carelessness; my covert coat is old and softly unstructured and I wouldn’t lose my cool if a gate agent ordered me to check it amongst the strollers and golf bags.  The real issue is convenience, though.  Travel is rarely what it once was, and the more the traveller can do to reduce friction, the better.  If this means going without a beloved overcoat for the duration, so be it.

Overthrown?

    Is it outerwear or the idea of outerwear that has fallen on hard times?   Fur-lined great coats, thickly piled ulsters, raglan sleeved balmacaans—these things still exist, if not widely in ready-to-wear, then certainly as products of the magical confluence between imaginative client and willing tailor.  But the use of classic overcoats has dramatically declined, even since I was a boy.  Why?  The usual response from misty-eyed classicists is to blame technical sports gear.  But is innovation in materials really the sole reason for diminished richness in the variety of overcoats?  I would argue not; it is only an accessory in the slaying of the heavy overcoat.

    The warmest, widely worn overcoats of the first half of the previous century would be those made from lofty woven cloths, like melton, camelhair and alpaca pile.  These would vary considerably in performance and price, with the most exclusive (and warmest) end of the market featuring fur collars and lapels.  But cheaper woolens with less loft and a courser hand made up the vast majority of overcoats.  In the simplest sense, real warmth was expensive; the rest offered mediocre performance and an experience similar to wearing a thatched roof.  Synthetics, especially wind and water-resistant shells and poly-wool filler, changed the construction of outerwear considerably.  No longer was a coat reliant upon the quality of a particular cloth; stitching filler between layers of synthetic textiles is a cheap but effective way of creating warmth.  Today’s cheap puffer coats might not look like much, but they are warm.

    But cheap warmth doesn’t account for why most modern outerwear is short.  If we consider for a moment transportation, historically the challenge has been in staying warm on the platform, in the chilly train car and within unheated indoor public spaces.  Cumbersome or not, a heavy overcoat was necessary.  The modern challenge in transportation is in trying not to overheat while en route.  We spend short spells outside of heated environments and once a destination is reached outerwear is shed and must be stored.  What’s required is little more than lightweight but effective insulation of the vital organs.  Today’s preferred commuter jackets are made of feather-weight, high-performance ingredients but rarely extend beyond the hips.  The popularity of vests has me wondering if sleeves are already thought of as unnecessary.

    While lessoned expectations of formality have enabled the short, brightly colored technical jacket, a type of overcoat still very much exists at the ordinary retail level.  As overcoats began cutting weight and volume according to consumer demand, full-length coats became knee-length, double-breasted ulsters became single and lapels and collars standardized.  What emerged was the result of consolidated choice, generically compliant with an established idea of what a man’s overcoat looks and feels like.  The critical failing, though, is performance.  Real warmth is just not expected from today’s generic overcoat.  The most common are made of wool with some minor percentage of cashmere—principally used to justify a higher price point—but the weight and loft of the cloth is barely more than what is expected of a sport coat.  The fact that it is likely single-breasted with skimpy, deeply plunging lapels and a collar incapable of flipping up or buttoning further reduces practicality.  In short, the modern overcoat has retained the cons, but eliminated the pros.  If a young man’s first encounter with an overcoat is with one of these, he can hardly be blamed for preferring technical gear.

    So is the overcoat this generation’s buggy whip, perhaps vaguely familiar, but no more likely?  I had all but given up on the future of overcoats before last winter.  In the deepest stretch of January I was responsible for taking some high school seniors to a desolate and frozen patch of Iowa for a wrestling tournament.  As they clamored onto the bus, I noticed one of them was wearing a bathrobe over his school uniform.  I enquired: he explained it was the only thing that didn’t end above his hips, and as the bus was chilly and he wished to stay warm for the duration, he thought a full-length robe was the most practical solution.  It occurred to me on the spot: given time, the heavy overcoat, like anything else, can seem novel.  Sadly, rather than wool pile or dashing camelhair, his was synthetic fleece with cartoon characters.  I made him remove it before entering the arena; as with all combat sports, first impressions are important.