The trench coat is one of those rare pieces whose story deserves to be told. Born in the mud of the First World War trenches, it journeyed through the century to become an essential of the elegant wardrobe, worn as much by men as by women.
Its origin dates back to the 1850s, when Thomas Burberry developed gabardine, a tightly woven, breathable and waterproof cotton fabric. But it was in 1914 that the trench coat found its true purpose: British officers needed a functional coat, capable of withstanding the elements while allowing freedom of movement. The piece was then designed with precision: epaulettes for rank insignia, D-rings to attach equipment, a storm flap on the chest, a back vent for riding on horseback. Every detail serves a function.
After the war, the trench coat did not disappear. It migrated from the battlefields to the cinema screen. Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's, Alain Delon in Le Samouraï — the trench becomes the costume of magnetic antiheroes, elegant spies, free women. It embodies a form of sophisticated nonchalance that cinema immortalises.
Today, the trench coat is a centrepiece of the contemporary wardrobe. It comes in cotton, linen, silk, but it is in cashmere that it finds its highest expression. A cashmere gabardine retains the practical spirit of the original model — protection from the wind, the generous cut that is belted with a single gesture — while adding a softness and nobility that the officers of 1914 could never have imagined.
To wear a trench coat today is to wear a century of history. A piece that has known war and peace, military rigour and the insolence of cinema, function and form. The trench coat never goes out of fashion because it does not tell the story of one era: it tells them all.