[EDIT: Upon reviewing this article on year later, many of the longcoat styles have been pulled from the men's catalog selction. Only time will tell if they return.]
[EDIT: Upon reviewing this article over 2 years later, it appears that London Fog is doing some restructuring. Check your local stores for what is available.
It looks like Indy wears something between a the Polo coat and the Green Loden.
In this one, it looks like a beige Polo coat or a Macintosh
Marcus looks like he is wearing somthing between the British Warm and the Slim and Short.
Just some observations...
Cheers,
Pyro
Last edited by Pyroxene on Wed Jul 20, 2005 11:27 am, edited 6 times in total.
The classic authentic trench coat is made by the firm of Burberrys. Thomas Burberry may not, in fact, have been the inventor of gabardine, although he was enough of a businessman to patent this cotton weave, resistant to water and wind, in rain-swept England in 1879. Burberrys retained exclustive manufacturing right to the material untl 1917. This hard-wearing cloth soon came to the attention of the armed forces, and English officers first wore Burberry coats during the Boer War. In 1914 one version received official apprival from the War Ministry, and over 500,000 of these "trench coats" were worn during the First World War (hence the name). The trench coat's military past is recalled today by its shoulder tabs, the storm flap at the collar, and the D-shaped rings on the belt, which were used to attach items of equipment. If you dislike these associations, avoid the classic Burberry in favor of a gabardine coat of a different design. Some people may also be put off by the lining in the Burberrys house check, a pattern which has become extremely well known. They can buy an Aquascutum trench coat, a make which is also of very high repute but still somewhat less exclusive.
Here is a great article on trench coats I shared on Indy Fan some time ago:
P.S.
Bogart did not wear a Burberry......or at least ant Burberry that I have ever seen. I have not been able to identify the brand.....yet.
The History of Trench Wearefare: Military Issue to Movie Cool, Appeal of a Movie Classic Endures.
by John Moore
THE retro-trend to big band music, swing dancing, elegant cocktails and elegant cocktail dresses (yes!) may at last be what it takes to stop men from dressing like undergraduate yobs and get into some adult male threads.
No contemporary item of male apparel carries such a weight of symbolism as the trench coat and, judging by a recent tour of the racks, this classic topcoat is reclaiming the high ground on turf it never really surrendered.
Invented by Thomas Burberry during the First World War, the original was a belted twill cotton gabardine of exceptionally close weave, treated with a chemical finish that made the coat water-repellent.
Cut higher than the heavy ankle-length military "great coats" actually worn in the trenches, the trench coat retained the epaulettes and double-breasted cut of the military uniform and was quickly adopted as an outer coat for officers.
Versions of it remain in military use to this day and the now rather bland single-breasted, small collared belted raincoat or topcoat worn by businessmen is its somewhat emasculated grandson.
Despite the horrors of The Great War, which ought to have made people recoil from anything that suggested a uniform, military style continued to exert a powerful influence on fashion during the decades that followed. Sold off as surplus in the millions, trench coats became the poor man's (and woman's) raincoat during the Roaring Twenties and especially the depressed Dirty Thirties.
Women's suits continued to feature epaulettes and double rows of buttons, and the trend would reach its apotheosis in the para-military political movements of the '30s, Fascism and Nazism.
The Nazi party in Germany very consciously and cynically played on the "uniform fashion" style set by the Great War as part of its appeal to people whose lives were destroyed by the Depression, economic and political factors so far beyond their control that they longed for the simple politics of war.
Burberry's trench coat, however, had undergone a symbolic transformation. In the vision of pulp fiction writers and film noir suspense thrillers, it became the anti-uniform of the underdog, the morally compromised secret agent and the cynical private detective.
Many of these anti-heroes were characterized as jaded veterans of the First World War or the Spanish Civil War. Alan Ladd in This Gun For Hire, Humphrey Bogart in The Big Sleep and Casablanca, men who had seen war and death for ideals later compromised in political back rooms and came to stand for a new personal, individual code of justice.
As Bogart said in Casablanca, "I stick my neck out for no man." But, of course, he did.
Though Bogey only wears the coat in the final scene of Casablanca, it remains the benchmark trench-coat movie: the fog, mingled with gunpowder, the plane, the urgency, the redemptive sacrifice of love on the altar of the good of mankind, all embodied in one lonely desperate man wearing a military coat from a past war, a man who only a few frames ago answered an SS major's inquiry about his nationality with the flip remark, "I'm a drunkard," now stands only a few feet from the body of the same SS man and tells his One True Love to go with her husband and behave nobly because "the problems of two people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world."
It's the coat.
Can you imagine Bogey trying to put this line over in an all-season Gore-Tex convertible parka from Mountain Equipment Co-Op and a snow-boarder tuque?
It wouldn't fly, neither would Ingrid Bergman and there would be no Casablanca. Interestingly, in film noir, the trench coat became androgynous; worn by women like Bergman, Joan Crawford and especially Marlene Dietrich, it proclaimed the wearer a woman with a past, a woman of mystery and intrigue, usually dangerous as suggested by her adoption of the quasi-military uniform of a dangerous man.
The dangerous man, the private investigator, the secret agent, has been described as a "knight without armour" whose dark quest is the material of the modern suspense-mystery genre in literature and film. By an odd bit of synchronicity, their unofficial uniform, the trench coat, itself has an ancient connection with knightly virtue.
When Burberry designed it, he adapted existing designs that had been developed during the 19th century.
As men adopted long trousers in preference to delicate breeches and silk hose during the early part of the century, they no longer required the neck-to-ankle protection offered by the old frock coat or great coat.
Shorter overcoats in various styles raised the male hemline to the knee or slightly above, tried out single-breasted buttoning (though this was confined to country dress) and experimented with combinations of pouch-pockets, belted and beltless waistlines and rolled or unrolled collars.
Some were known by the names of those who popularized the styles, like the Chesterfield coat favoured by the Lord of the same name, who influenced furniture style as well.
A generic term often used to describe these short overcoats was "paletot" and the earliest use of that term is medieval French.
A paletot is the light silk coat a Knight wore over his armour, his "coat of arms" which displayed his own insignia or that of his Lord, in order to identify which side he was on in a field cluttered with men each wearing a hundred pounds of anonymous hardware and bent on killing each other.
The paletot made sure you whacked the right guy in the melee.
One of the chief complaints of 19th century staff officers about the turn of the century decision to abandon the brightly coloured identifying uniforms of the past, (the British "red coat" and the French blue), was that the new khaki, olive drab and field-grey made all soldiers, friend and foe, the colour of mud.
They recognized the threat to social hierarchy implicit in the democratization of the battlefield. Two mud-coloured soldiers on a confused field are psychologically disinclined to see each other as enemies and more likely to declare a spontaneous truce and identify the senior officers on both sides (they of the spotless trench coats) as their common foe, as sometimes happened during WWI.
The battered trench coat became the uniform of Everyman.
As the symbol of the modern knight errant, the trench coat still packs a mythic semiotic wallop.
When English comedian Peter Sellers parodied the noir genre in a succession of decreasingly funny Pink Panther films, he made a point of appearing at least once in every film wearing the classic Burberry trench coat. It not only identified him as the Detective; it anointed him, however monumental his blunders and gaffs, as the Hero.
If you must have nothing but the real thing, you can still get the classic Burberry trench coat at Edward Chapman Men's Shop at 833 West Pender, but bring along $1,495. Not something a Private Eye would want to bleed on or have unsavoury characters put large-calibre holes in.
Less pricey contemporary versions, whatever their style variations, haven't lost sight of Burberry's original concept, but chemistry now contributes more than the water-repellent treatment; it's the source of the suede-like synthetic microfibre of the coat itself.
Breathable, lightweight, it makes a slightly softer, less constructed coat than the stiff Second World War surplus one I wore for years.
Dunn's Tailors in Park Royal South carries a high-end version for $550, but their slightly more casual, lined for winter, version preserves the bulky look of the original, which only came in Military Size Too (Too big or Too small), at $350.
The London Fog line retains the double-breasted style, belted waist, wide collars and button cuffs, but has eliminated the shoulder epaulette for a cleaner line, since men no longer need it to secure gloves or forage caps.
At Eaton's Park Royal, as at Dunn's, gunmetal grey is the seasonal colour, though they are also available in black, blue and a tan "English khaki" that's a close approximation of the original, for $310.
Eaton's also carries the slightly less pricey Weatherman line for $229 and you can top off the ensemble with a Supercraft snap-brim trilby hat in matching grey or black at $59.99 for a look that might get you followed by CSIS operatives and probably by members of the gender you'd most like to be tailed by.
What caught my eye was the overcoat worn in Road to Perdition by Hanks (after I could tear my stare away from all the fedoras). It seems similar to the Polo coat pictured above and not too far removed from Indy's coat.
Indiana Ken wrote:What caught my eye was the overcoat worn in Road to Perdition by Hanks (after I could tear my stare away from all the fedoras). It seems similar to the Polo coat pictured above and not too far removed from Indy's coat.
Ken
My thoughts exactly Ken, Polo looks pretty close to Indy's LC 'on the lamb' look. Also gives your gear the perfect RTP look. I'll have to pick up one these days...
So has anyone actually identified where any of the the trench coats for any of the movies came from or were made by? Such as Toht's leather trench in Raiders(wested maybe?), or Indy's black trench from the zepplin scene of Crusade?
Lindiana
i just got to looking through my closet, and found a size 44(i wear a 40 or 42) london fog overcoat/raincoat my dad gave me that used to be his. it looks like the green loden (though black) and the pockets of the crombie. not sure if it's the one in the londen fog pic, since it's not coming up for me. but anyway, when i throw it over my wested, it fits fairly well, and looks great with my fed delux and my late uncles bogart style Knox-New York grey fedora with black ribbon.
Way off topic, but did anyone else notice that "Raincoat" on the bottom-right looks a heckuva alot like the one that Frank Sinatra famously throws over his shoulder in the "Pal Joey" promotional photo-shoots?
I'm resurecting this post because...well, because it's been pouring here and I'm on the hunt for and indyesque trench coat similar to this one:
The problem is I must be living on the wrong end of the country because I can't seem to find anyone that even carry's trench coats let alone a decent selection of double breasted models. So I'm looking for online sources from pretty much anywhere in the world at this point. I've seen a couple at that auction place but haven't seen THE ONE on there yet. Thanks for any leads.
The blue on the collar is a button in wool piece that is removable.
The local store wouldn't match the sale price so I'm stuck waiting for it to be shipped next week.
They have an excellent return policy so if I don't like it I can return it right to the local store.
I laughed when I first read "Hot Topic." My yound sister-in-law used to shop in there all the time, too, Michaelson. Hmmm... I wonder if they have anything in black? I also love your story about the time you went in wearing some of your Indy gear and had a conversation with one of the clerks.
Yep. Nice young lady too, and had enough scrap metal in her face to replicate a fender for my Plymouth. Interesting folks in those stores....and honestly real nice kids too. It's funny how folks will go out of their way to avoid having to talk to them. I sometimes just go in the stores to interact with the kids there. They seem anxious to talk to folks who don't recoil from their 'goth' dress. I don't care. You are who you want to be, so be comfortable in your own skin. Like I told the young lady, to paraphrase, it didn't bother me to talk to a young'n dressed in goth if it didn't bother them to talk to an old feller like me dressed like a fictional movie character.
Michaelson wrote:Yep. Nice young lady too, and had enough scrap metal in her face to replicate a fender for my Plymouth. Interesting folks in those stores....and honestly real nice kids too. It's funny how folks will go out of their way to avoid having to talk to them. I sometimes just go in the stores to interact with the kids there. They seem anxious to talk to folks who don't recoil from their 'goth' dress. I don't care. You are who you want to be, so be comfortable in your own skin. Like I told the young lady, to paraphrase, it didn't bother me to talk to a young'n dressed in goth if it didn't bother them to talk to an old feller like me dressed like a fictional movie character.
Regards! Michaelson
Well said, Michaelson!
The old "Don't judge a book by its cover".
Michaelson wrote:My London Fog HAS epaulets, if you're replying to my post.
Regards! Michaelson
The current line that I've seen no longer has the epaulets. The London Fog web page is supposed to be up in 2006. Hopefully there will be more of a selection there than is in stores.
Even the coat I found was the only double breasted w/ epaulets model offered by that store. The selection just doesn't seem very broad considering we are now in the wet weather season again.
binkmeisterRick wrote: I laughed when I first read "Hot Topic." My yound sister-in-law used to shop in there all the time, too, Michaelson. Hmmm... I wonder if they have anything in black? I also love your story about the time you went in wearing some of your Indy gear and had a conversation with one of the clerks.
bink
they do awesome sci fi and classic computer game tees.
Illinois Troy wrote:I tried that link for London Fog and nothing came up. Is that where you snagged the overcoat pics?
Illinois
They're from the book "Gentleman - A Timeless Fashion" by B. Roetzel. A most entertaining and informative book - somewhat biased towards British taste though (in fact, the book was partially sponsored by Church's Shoes - very obvious when reading the chapter on shoes. Hmm...;-) )
Indiana Neri wrote:Way off topic, but did anyone else notice that "Raincoat" on the bottom-right looks a heckuva alot like the one that Frank Sinatra famously throws over his shoulder in the "Pal Joey" promotional photo-shoots?
Indy N.
It is quite similar, both in color and lining. I can tell you're a fellow Sinatra fan!
My Indy connection for this post is that the Sinatra picture is by Drew Struzan
Michaelson wrote:Well, mine IS probably about 7 or 8 years old, so they've more than likely messed up and changed the classic design.
WHY do companies do that?
Regards! Michaelson
As luck would have it I was killing my lunch hour at a local thrift shop and they had exactly one trench coat there...a London Towne(aka Fog), tan, double breasted, with epaulets, in exactly my size. I got it for a grand total of $20! So I guess when the $100 one I ordered gets here I'll be returning it to the store for a refund and spending the other $80 on some other piece of gear.
Now if I could just find a the perfect suit I'll be set for a night on the town in style.
Michaelson wrote: ↑Thu Jun 29, 2023 8:50 pm
Mercy! 2005! You’ve been reading back a ways, haven’t you!? Regards! Michaelson
This forum is the equivalent of Youtube for other people: you start reading and a few hours later you are looking at posts entirely different to what you were initially researching.
I sometimes just go in the stores to interact with the kids there. They seem anxious to talk to folks who don't recoil from their 'goth' dress. I don't care. You are who you want to be, so be comfortable in your own skin. Like I told the young lady, to paraphrase, it didn't bother me to talk to a young'n dressed in goth if it didn't bother them to talk to an old feller like me dressed like a fictional movie character. 
Regards! Michaelson
