Of all outerwear, I trust the coat the most. It asks little of you and gives a lot in return. I love the way a good one swallows you whole, smoothing over a rough outfit or body insecurity with the silhouette of a chic, vertical scribble. You could say, “This ol’ thing? I just threw it on!” and, for once, you wouldn’t be lying. A coat requires no effort, yet provides the glamour that other garments only dream of.
The sweater is a no-brainer and I appreciate the cardigan in theory. In practice, I resent the way its sleeves cling to my arms. It’s the jacket that I’ve never warmed up to.
I know a man in San Francisco who’s worn the same jacket every time I’ve seen him. We, his friends, have started to wonder if he owns another. It’s not handsome or heinous, but it looks like it belongs behind glass in a museum exhibition titled Jackets Through the Years. Next to it, a small plaque detailing its era and life story: early 2020s, one cross-country move, 203 commutes on BART, 16 whiskey sour spills, and so on. Like most jackets, it reads utilitarian—adorned with compartments, flaps, and hardware. What does he store in those shallow grooves? I wonder. A gum wrapper until he finds a proper trash? A packet of Tapatio to liven an unseasoned meal? Well, not the latter. The man eats a peanut butter and grape jelly Uncrustable for lunch every day. It’s not the likeliest choice for a 40-year-old, but it starts to make sense once you learn he’s great at trivia, raised in the Carolinas, and, as far as anyone can tell, only owns one jacket.
I can relate. I, too, have only ever had one jacket at a time that felt right. I’ll wear it for years until it disintegrates or I abandon it in a hotel room—a forlorn and impolite way to retire clothing. In my early twenties, it was an oversized denim jacket I picked up from the Melrose Trading Post, a flea market in West Hollywood that doubles as a dumping ground for local hoarders. It was sky blue, with sleeves billowy enough to roll to my elbows, had I needed to get into any dirty work like changing a car’s oil or sticking my fist into a birth canal to relieve a pregnant cow. Instead, I wore it to Target to buy containers of hummus a YouTuber had endorsed as “perfectly smooth,” and on first dates with men who might see me in it and think, Denim on the first date—down-to-earth.
The jacket even came with me to Kanazawa, Japan, where I boarded the wrong bus and rode two hours in the wrong direction. When I mustered the courage to ask the driver for help, he opened the calculator app on his phone to show me when the next return bus would come. “Time! TIME!” he yelled, stabbing at the screen, disturbed by the prospect of dropping off a young, disoriented solo female traveler on the side of the road in the dark. I killed time browsing bags of rice and frozen mollusks at a supermarket in its final hour before close.
Back in LA, my roommate—half a foot shorter than me—would text me from her room, “Can I borrow the good denim jacket?” I owned several, but we both knew which one was good. She worked in fashion, dressing up celebrities and models for red-carpet events and photo shoots. I think she once put James Franco in a Gucci suit, or maybe it was Prada. Either way, she had credentials. Her approval of, and desire to wear, my jacket among her no-doubt discerning posse, in a city where outfits aren’t just worn but styled, meant something. On her, it looked more like a denim poncho—bare legs poking out beneath like an anthropomorphized, flirty Mrs. M&M. Sometimes we bickered over it.
“You wore it last night,” she’d say.
“Yeah, but, like, it’s literally mine,” I’d respond.
Soon after Japan, I outgrew the denim jacket—not physically, since I was twenty-five by then—but in the way a teenager might regard her once-favorite dolls: fondly, but with embarrassment. It was succeeded by a black, boxy men’s blazer. After a couple of years, Mo started making snide comments. “Used car salesman,” I believe, were his words. I would’ve said “‘80s supermodel off duty.”
Mo owns several jackets (must be nice!) and wears each with equal enthusiasm. His quilted army green one makes him look like a turtle who was granted a single wish and used it to become human. His navy and khaki Member’s Only-style jackets both feel as if plucked off the wardrobe rack for Fun Uncle in a ‘90s sitcom. The Barbour, with its corduroy collar, seems better suited to a rural aristocrat or duck hunter in the English countryside than to a white-collar worker who uses it to walk to and from his Audi.
Perhaps my issue with jackets is that they tell stories that are no longer true. Most of us aren’t laborers in rail yards or infantrymen navigating hostile terrain, nor are we colonial officers peering through binoculars with a flask of gin in hand. I don’t know a single person studying penguins in the Arctic or hauling freight in a tractor-trailer. Yet here we are, dressed for adventure while every part of our lives becomes more automated and simplified. I’d like a jacket made for the modern, delicate creature, someone who flinches at a breeze and avoids shaded sidewalks on days below seventy degrees- which is most days in San Francisco.
Now, in my thirties, the only jacket I can put on without pitying my reflection is an oversized leather one from Sunday’s Best, a thrift store in Echo Park. I found it while waiting for a table at Donna’s, an elevated red-sauce Italian spot nearby, where I was supposed to meet my friend and the new girl he was seeing. When they said they’d be early, I suggested we meet at the store.
I greeted them with an anticipatory grin and an armful of finds, like a child at the doorway on Halloween. They insisted I model the items, so I did, including the leather jacket. His date was Australian and an architect. I was certain she had taste.
“If you don’t buy that, I will,” she threatened.
I found this jacket, not you, I thought. I’d combed through hangers of curated junk, not her; rescued this beauty from the wreckage. Nose in the air, I walked my prize to the register along with a pair of men’s trousers and a blazer with elbow pads. “Just these!” I said. The woman behind the counter stuffed them into a black plastic bag, which I kept beside me in the booth all dinner long.
I have spent the most money on outerwear, namely coats. A coat is armor that prevents you from looking shabby because a proper, elegant one is a sheath saying to the world that you look fabulous, even if beneath it, the reality is otherwise.