The Kelly imposition

Classics — they’re very in this year, aren’t they? You can’t go anywhere without bumping into balmacaans, Ulsters, trench coats, Lodens, Chesterfields, polo coats, and assorted other golden oldies. And like a stopped clock being right once a day, they’re must-haves this winter.

Now, it is all very well paying lip-service to these classics. And, truth be told, it is easy to make them. But make is the operative word: if you want to produce one of the classics, you can skip design or development, and go straight to make. More difficult, but more fulfilling, is to take a classic and impose upon its famed form and features your own ideas. To make it yours, by modernising or streamlining; to try to establish your own motifs with new sizes and positions; to get to grips with classic proportions and give them a good jiggle; sometimes, even, to go back to the foundations, gut them, and build from scratch.

The peacoat, then, has a three-panel body and in-seam pockets submerged into its patches. It also has a one-piece split-sleeve, for good reasons, and turn-back half-cuffs, for whimsical ones. The trench coat takes those fiddly belt-loops and sweeps them away. It then makes its belt more useful by applying the multi-sliding retainer of a bag strap. The flight jacket has a saddle-shoulder construction, outlining where once would lie epaulettes. The donkey jacket has the contrasting top and bottom of the classic, but does it in a way that embraces, or integrates, a seamless upper-body. It even slides a pocket in there, for good measure. The duffle coat does the same trick with its yoke at the front.