Cardigans are currently being pulled out of space bags. And, if Fashion Week showed us anything, it’s that bomber jackets are having moment. But if could only pick one Winter fashion essential, it would undoubtedly be the trench coat.
After all, there aren’t too many items of clothing that can claim to have marched through war zones and catwalks, appeared on silver screens and school runs, wrapped around royalty and rock stars alike. It is both armour and elegance. Utility and fantasy. Practical enough for rain, polished enough for the front row. More than a century after its creation, the trench coat remains fashion’s most enduring outerwear obsession – not because it changes dramatically, but because it never really has to.
Its origins, of course, are deeply functional. The trench coat was born from warfare, not wardrobes. In the early 1900s, British luxury houses Burberry and Aquascutum developed weatherproof military coats for officers heading into the trenches of the First World War. Thomas Burberry’s invention of gabardine – a tightly woven, breathable and waterproof fabric – transformed military dressing entirely. Suddenly, soldiers had something lighter than the heavy wool greatcoats previously worn in battle.
Every detail of the trench served a purpose. The storm flap protected against rain. Epaulettes displayed military rank. D-rings attached equipment. Deep pockets carried maps and gloves. Even the belt had military functionality. Yet somehow, despite its practical beginnings, the trench coat emerged from war with an unmistakable air of sophistication. Perhaps because uniforms always carry symbolism. Perhaps because tailoring has long been associated with power. Or perhaps because fashion has always had a tendency to romanticise resilience.
By the 1920s, the trench had already begun its transition from military necessity to civilian icon. Hollywood accelerated the transformation. Cinema understood the coat’s cinematic potential almost immediately. It moved beautifully in motion. It created silhouette and mystery. A trench coat could conceal vulnerability while simultaneously making someone look impossibly chic.
Few fashion moments are as instantly recognisable as Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, standing beneath the fog in his belted trench coat as Ingrid Bergman disappears from view. The coat became shorthand for emotional restraint and masculine glamour. Later came Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, her trench adding an effortless polish to Manhattan mornings. Then Catherine Deneuve in Belle de Jour, where the trench transformed into something sleek, sensual and quietly dangerous.
Fashion, meanwhile, continued refining the silhouette decade after decade. The trench coat survived because it adapted without abandoning its DNA. In the 1960s, it became part of mod dressing. In the 1980s, oversized trenches swept through power dressing culture alongside sharp shoulders and corporate ambition. By the 1990s, minimalism gave the trench a cleaner, more stripped-back energy, worn loose over slip dresses and denim.
Then came the supermodel era. Kate Moss made the trench feel dishevelled and impossibly cool, often thrown over tiny dresses with smudged eyeliner and bedhead hair. Princess Diana wore oversized trench coats off-duty with cycling shorts and loafers long before quiet luxury became fashion’s favourite phrase. More recently, Rihanna has turned the trench into high-fashion theatre, while Bella Hadid styles vintage trenches with the kind of downtown nonchalance that sends TikTok searching for second-hand gabardine.
Part of the trench coat’s enduring appeal lies in its remarkable refusal to belong to one aesthetic alone. It can lean minimalist or maximalist, masculine or feminine, polished or undone. Worn belted tightly, it creates structure and authority. Left open, it becomes relaxed and cinematic. Draped over the shoulders, it suggests a kind of effortless European glamour that fashion endlessly tries to replicate.
It is also one of the rare luxury pieces that genuinely transcends trend cycles. While fashion constantly reinvents itself, the trench remains largely untouched. Hemlines may shift. Colours may soften from camel to chocolate to olive. Designers may experiment with leather, denim or exaggerated proportions. And even budgets may vary (the Motto one in the feature image can be snapped up for less than $250!). Yet the core remains intact. Double-breasted. Belted. Timeless.
Perhaps that consistency is precisely why the trench coat continues to resonate so deeply today. In an era increasingly defined by microtrends and algorithm-driven aesthetics, the trench represents permanence. It resists over explanation. And doesn’t require viral validation. It simply works.
There is also something deeply emotional about the trench coat’s connection to memory. Most people can picture someone iconic wearing one. A parent rushing through the city in winter. A film heroine disappearing into rain. A model photographed running between Paris shows. The trench coat has become woven into fashion’s collective imagination because it appears at transitional moments – departures, arrivals, transformations. It is clothing built for movement.
Luxury brands understand this emotional currency well. Burberry continues to centre the trench as the foundation of its identity, season after season, even as creative directors come and go. Under Daniel Lee, the house has reimagined the trench through softened tailoring and modern proportions, proving that evolution need not erase heritage. Elsewhere, brands from The Row to Prada repeatedly return to the silhouette because few garments communicate sophistication so instantly.
And maybe that is the trench coat’s greatest triumph. In a world of fast fashion, it has survives every era because it exists slightly outside of them.
