Burberry trench coat: a style pioneer

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Ostensibly, the trench coat is all about staying dry, albeit in the style that might be expected by the officer class. As far back as the Boer War, British outfitter Burberry was officially supplying the more well-to-do soldier with waterproofs. But it wouldn’t be until World War 1 – following Thomas Burberry's development of gabardine, the tightly-woven, coated cotton twill that kept the wind and the rain out but, unlike other rubberised waterproof cloths of the time, also saved the wearer from heat exhaustion – that a definitive style of protective coat came into service.

That coat was, of course, the aptly named trench coat, nicknamed the "trench warm" for the fact that it then had a detachable sheepskin liner. That element has long since been dropped from the design – leaving a simple, single layer of the wonder fabric that had been seriously tested by one Roald Amundsen, who wore it in the race to the South Pole, and later by Ernest Shackleton, who kitted his entire expedition out in the stuff.

Yet the trench coat's military origins do explain all the other functional detailing that has, thankfully, been retained over the decades: the epaulettes, by which the wearer expressed their rank when their uniform was covered up; the storm flaps at the shoulder, which channel rain away from the wearer but also provide additional padding against rifle recoil; and, most curiously, the optional belt's D-rings, good then for hanging grenades and ammunition pouches from.

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These days the Burberry trench coat’s greatest utility is its versatility, since it looks as good worn casually as it does worn formally, and is one of menswear's few garments that actually improves with age: the battered trench coat somehow still suggests the life of adventure for which the original was conceived. Perhaps this is why such a look became a default choice for cinema's costumiers seeking to give a character a quiet machismo – the likes of Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, or many of the detectives of noir movies, such as Robert Mitchum in Out of the Past. Or, for that matter, why the Burberry trench coat's appeal has long been embraced by women too, from Marlene Dietrich to Greta Garbo and Katharine Hepburn.

Indeed, much as they wore Burberry's trench coat as a bold statement of emancipation from fashion, so now it might be conceived as being above or beyond it: a distillation of no nonsense practicality, a considered outerwear design that has, for a century now, been hard to top.

Photographer: Roger Rich; fashion director: Jo Hambro; digital: Amelia Karlsen; grooming: Mike O'Gorman using Wella Professionals and Mac cosmetics; location: Thomas's Cafe, 5 Vigo St, Mayfair, London W1S 3HA; burberry.com