I would never wear a Barbour - full stop; or any other waxed jacket. No more than I would wear green wellies. Admittedly in the UK Barbour has passed its peak for wannabees.

You could justify a reflective coat or donkey jacket for low maintenance weather protection but they never feature outside the workplace.

I would wear other posh kit that passes the decent clobber test. Obviously ties with pheasants or gun dogs on them are as a big a no no as a Barbour.

The Barbour International is a brilliant jacket: rain-resistant, warm when you want it to be, stylish and something that gets better with age. I wouldn't be without one. I can understand the antipathy surrounding Bedales, Beauforts and so on: the Sloane associations are maybe too powerful for many here in the UK to ever overcome, but characterising all waxed cotton jackets as the Devil strikes me as counter-productive.

I think quality rainwear is something that Britain always did better than the US. An old Aquascutum or Burberrys will always be on a different planet, quality-wise, to the US produced variants, which only really had cache over here by virtue of being American. The Gloverall duffel is also something that springs to mind in this sphere.

Last edited by Natural Sole Brother (2010-03-25 10:49:40)

I wear a Barbour Bedale in sage green. I don't get the class ideas behind them - that all seems silly now. Not ivy, of course...but they needn't stick with connotations of funny old farmers or sloane types(they don't even exist now!). In fact, I think they can have a certain 'cool' about them when worn in that way that italians wear functional or sporty clothes...y'know, going sockless in your Weejuns or boatshoes and wearing wayfarers or something...

The Barbour International dates from the 1930s. It was actually designed for crew on William Randolph Hurst's yacht and was then taken up by British submariners as non-issued kit. The angled pocket on the left was designed for a pistol.

Its adoption as a motorcycle jacket came later but its roots are essentially nautical.

Food for thought.

I'd go knit tie & fly-fronted Mack these days.

I used to wear a Trench, inspired by Dexter Gordon... I wouldn't now. Mr. Lockerloop has also written about his feelings re: The Trench: Ivy to John Simons & Ian Strachan, et al, but not to him. And I'd side with him these days too.

Yet the Trench is, again, very Brooksian & deeply Ivy in the US - Especially the Burberry.

The knit tie is a funny one - It's English, yet I never see it that way.

????

I'm a bit post-Repps these days, although, Lord knows, I've got more than a few of them in the wardrobe. They're too easily misunderstood over here I think.

Rather like the Blazer...