To look super-suave, you need a peacoat
Take it from Robert Redford and Daniel Craig: neither jacket nor duffel, the peacoat is the ideal cover-up for action men, says Peter Howarth
‘It’s all about the length,” Isabel Ettedgui, the woman behind Connolly, says as she shows me a black peacoat made with technical Japanese taffeta and lightly padded with microfibre. Like many of Connolly’s pieces, it’s a classic. But because the company often takes its cue from the golden age of motoring — it upholstered the original James Bond Aston Martin DB5 in Goldfinger — this latest version has been made short enough to wear when sitting behind the wheel. “The great thing about a peacoat is that it is a sort of uniform,” Ettedgui says. “Because it comes from the navy it has a military heritage and looks tough and masculine. But because of the length it’s so versatile.”
The style, as she points out, is neither jacket nor coat, but the perfect hybrid. You can wear it with a rollneck, jeans and boots for a nautical look; with a shirt and tie, tailored grey flannel trousers and leather Oxfords for a more elegant take; or with a T-shirt, joggers and trainers for a down-the-market vibe.
I discovered the peacoat in New York, in a store on Broadway. I hadn’t noticed the style before but there was something about it in the Big Apple that made sense. It brought to mind the 1955 shots by Dennis Stock of James Dean walking through a rainy Times Square, hunched in his coat. Jimmy’s was not a peacoat, it was a longer double-breasted overcoat, but let’s not quibble. In any case his looked like a US naval officer’s coat and, significantly, it’s the double-breastedness of that image that resonates: here is a man huddled against the elements, swaddled in his protective outerwear.
And a peacoat is always double-breasted. These days it comes with six main buttons and one to fasten the collar beneath the lapels — a notched-lapel Ulster collar, which folds over and buttons up.
The style goes back several hundred years; there are references to “pea jackets” from the 1720s. The origin of the name is not clear. Some say it comes from the Dutch word pijjekker, where the pij references a blue twill cloth. Others believe that the “P” stands for “pilot” and refers to a tough fabric known as “pilot cloth”.
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Either way, the heritage has handy associations with resilience and masculinity. This is brilliantly illustrated in the 1975 Sydney Pollack film Three Days of the Condor, in which Robert Redford transforms from a literary boffinish CIA researcher into a resourceful sleuth who handles a gun and exposes a rogue CIA cell. The key sartorial switch comes when, on the run, he swaps his grey tweed herringbone jacket for a navy-blue peacoat, and thus the bookworm becomes the super-spy. Could Three Days of the Condor have been the reason why we saw Daniel Craig’s 007 wearing a peacoat in Skyfall? Maybe. Commander Bond is, after all, a Royal Navy man. Craig’s navy-blue peacoat was by the American brand Billy Reid and had plain buttons. Redford’s had buttons with an anchor motif, which were a feature of US navy-issue peacoats. (Pub fact: in 2019 the US navy ended the issue of the woollen peacoat, replacing it with a synthetic parka.) But this style of button can also be found on civvy-street styles, such as the black one I bought in Manhattan about two and a half decades ago. I can’t remember who made it, but it was probably Schott, and you can find anchor buttons on some of its peacoats today.
Of course, over time, the practical peacoat, as with many staple designs of the male wardrobe, has received a luxury makeover. These days you can have one from Purdey in the colour elk, a pale country brown; a navy-blue showerproof model in 30oz Melton wool from Private White VC; a soft style in navy blue from Brunello Cucinelli, Burberry, Thomas Pink, Corneliani and Dior; and a water-repellent, green microfibre model from Canali. Plus, of course, the black version from Connolly.
Whatever the provenance and whatever the spin, the essential appeal of the garment stays the same. Neither jacket nor coat, this classic does two jobs.
connollyengland.com; schottnyc.com; purdey.com; privatewhitevc.com; brunellocucinelli.com; burberry.com; thomaspink.com; corneliani.com; dior.com; canali.com
