“A trench coat buys you a coat and a half” a shop assistant told me circa 2011 while I drunkenly stared at myself in a full-length mirror wearing a beige Burberry copy that cost more than my entire first month’s rent as a trainee teacher. She said it like some druidic piece of ancient wisdom. I believed her. I wore that coat throughout an entire Leeds October, learnt very quickly that it did absolutely nothing in “real rain”, and spent the entirety of that winter substitute teaching in a parka coat whilst the trench lived in my wardrobe looking, admittedly lovely, but doing, functionally nothing.
So when people say “Is the trench coat still trendy?” my very honest answer is no – it never went out of style, because honestly it never was a style question to begin with. It’s been churned out by every high street store and every luxury fashion house on repeat for long enough that “trendy” has ceased being a helpful descriptor for it. The question you should be asking is if it’s still worth buying, which breaks down into two arguments that people tend to blend into one: does it still look good? And more importantly, does it actually work?
The style-based argument: does it still look like anything in particular, or just like your habits?
Visually speaking, the trench coat has something of an unfair advantage over every other item in the outerwear world because it was never particularly trend led to start with. It has working origins in a military coat, got picked up by Hollywood, then got picked up again by every decade since without anyone really needing to redesign it. That is not to say it ever feels particularly exciting. It’s saying it never feels dated, which is a different compliment and honestly a much more useful one; because as long as it can say that about itself you can wear the same exact coat shape for fifteen years without ever looking like you’re trying to make a statement on 2015.
I think where people tend to go wrong is by treating every trench equally when actually a lot of the heavy lifting is being done by the silhouette and not the details. Baggy trench? It just looks like a cagoule. Too long? Looks like a sally pearson rip off. Too boxy? Belt draped over itself like it gave up? Starts to read less coat, more costume. I say this as someone who lived in exactly that trench for three years before my year seven pupil looked me up and down and said, entirely earnest “Miss, are you a detective?” She was ten. I did not come back down. I went out and bought a tailored trench within the month and the difference wasn’t subtle. It was the difference between wearing a coat and wearing a caricature of a coat.
I think another one of those stuck points about the trench coat is the whole colour debate. Camel, beige, white gold. They get spoken about as if they’re the only acceptable colours for a trench coat because that’s what the original incarnation of them were colours but here’s the thing, a black or navy trench does exactly the same silhouette heavy lifting with about half the dry cleaning anxiety that I’m over a coat because I once ruined a beige trench, on a school trip I’ll forever shamefully bring up whenever someone mentions bleach, with a felt tip pen. Colour isn’t what’s important about modern trenches, fit is. Whether it’s sitting nicely on your shoulder line and whether the belt is being fastened at your actual waist, not where the coat naturally wants to sit.
Get that right and you’ll have a coat that looks modern any decade it’s worn in, which is either the most reassuring or most boring thing I could say about outerwear depending on how you look at it.
The practical argument: how well does it actually hold up outside?
This is where I become marginally less reserved because this is also the bit nobody talks about when slapping together styling articles but it also happens to be the bit I care about more than anything else when it comes to outerwear. The trench coat was designed to deal with trench warfare weather. Which, you’re probably thinking it, sounds great. A coat that can handle rain? Sign me up! Sail away, coats salesman. But here’s the thing Thatcher mentioned up top. Gabardine, the material they’re traditionally made from, is water resistant yes. But not waterproof. And if you’ve ever had to wring out your coat after a rain storm you know that is honestly a colossal difference the kindly (but severely misinformed) shop assistant failed to mention.
I learnt that lesson x-ray style on a Tuesday in late September. Left the school gates into what had been described as “light rain” in the forecast. Light rain in Leeds is actually what I like to refer to as horizontal showers. You know the ones that clearly don’t like the fact you have places to be? And found my frankly exquisite trench coat had, in about a four-minute window transformed from something nice to wear, to literally a very nice soggy sponge. Been there wears waterproof so if you’re moving between taxi and restaurant and think you’ll maybe get slightly damp? Sure, that’s a coat. Mine consists of a fifteen minute walk to a bus stop with no shelter so my coat is now much less of a weather protector and more of an expensive way of looking polished for about three minutes; the length of time it takes the rain to find you.
None of this is me saying the coat isn’t worth buying. It absolutely is. Loads. Just maybe not for the reasons everyone else tells you it is. It’s perfect for those cold, dry days where it just adds to your outfit, incredible for hoovering around indoors heavy places like offices or trains where you’ll be taking it on and off anyway, and it’s a hell of a fashionable thing to own even if you never once test it against the British winter. It is not, and no high fashion collaboration will ever change this, a proper waterproof jacket once Autumn turns into actual autumn where you live. Buy both if you can, as I now do. A trench for the day where I miraculously stay dry and want to look LIKE I have my life together, and a good proper waterproof spray parka for the rest of the time the weather likes to lied to me about. Which, in Leeds, is pretty much every day.
So, is the trench coat still trendy? Of course it is. It’s been trendy since before your mum was wearing coats. The real question you should be asking yourself is are you buying it to look good or stay dry? Once you’re honest with yourself about your commute you can decide if the trench earns its place in your wardrobe, or belongs with mine as a gorgeous but objectively useless coat hangar decoration.
