On another post discussion just broke out about quilted Barbour-style jackets. I’ll plead guilty to owning one.
Others expressed strong distaste, so I say we put it to a vote.
(Alas our polling software is glitching right now, so you’ll have to weigh in via the comments section). — CC
“That’s a fine-looking coat, Madam.” Heh.
I prefer to sleep under a quilt rather than wearing one on the street.
Should that be:
I prefer sleeping under a quilt to wearing one on the street?
I prefer to sleep under a quilt rather than wear one on the street?
I would have no use for the quilted jacket, so I would never purcahse one. I have nothing against them though.
I live in Tynemouth just over the river from Barbour & all the local youth seem to be wearing them, I can only assume they half inched them from the factory shop.
Can’t stand the jacket myself…
It would look nice…on my hunter.
I don’t mind it. I prefer their waxed cotton though.
My personal view is no, but I say live and let live in matters of taste. The lineage is impeccable, and one certainly sees them on people who have a sense of both tradition and style. Not sure, but I think that averages out as a tepid vote from me in the affirmative. The waxed cotton, on the other hand, is a definite yes.
I see the quilted coats at the race track or around thoroughbred racing in general. I have two of the waxed coats that I couldn’t do without. So in general I like anything Barbour.
I have a quilted Barbour jacket from Sierra Trading Post. Too bad that they don’t carry Barbour anymore. Great prices.
And I also have a quilted Barbour vest that came from Royal Male at least 10 years ago. I guess I don’t see the problem.
I neither dislike them nor own one myself, but I do think they look much better on women than men.
They’re guilty of being a bit played out but I can definitely see their functionality when it’s too cold for a sweater but you don’t need the bulkiness or the typhoon protection a Beadale gives you. I’m interested in perhaps getting one at some point.
I have a negative view of them, perhaps attributable to seeing them sported by so many otherwise poorly-dressed office dwellers in Midtown Manhattan.
I don’t dislike them but I would feel like I was in the Chinese army if I wore it.
I have the waxed cotton Bristol (trim version of Beaufort) and the quilted Chelsea. Love them both.
I don’t recall ever having seen one in person here on the West Coast. Perhaps we’re more Pendleton/REI/Eddie Bauer than Barbour.
I like them, for the reasons outlined by Halby above.
It’s a classic. I have one and wear it often during the transition seasons.
Even Old English Jazzers wear Barbour. I’ve a much-loved Gamefair waxed jacket of 78 vintage (beat that!), heavily repaired but the once, and two later slightly effete quilted numbers. Barbour are a company that England is rightly proud of, thus it has been every Englishman’s duty to own at least one piece of Barbour apparel, preferably waxed.
Old Barbours never die, they just go back to South Shields for repair and waxing.
Yea. Got the quilted moleskin jacket for Christmas and love it. Have got compliments from both men and women. Also have a Bedale with the zip out liner that doubles a vest. I wear all three often. I am a big Barbour fan.
Rupe Bizzell
1.35 billion Chicoms can’t be wrong. 😉
Barbour? Green : never – too ‘country’. Blue? Of course! Waxed, quilted, belted. Top notch look that. ‘Soul Vendor’, London. PS Henry – I met two proper jazz men at a concert in Oakland CA, both Barboured up. Blue, of course.
I’d prefer sleeping on the street, to wearing one of those!
@Henry
Southern California, I assume.
In San Francisco, we don’t refer to “the West Coast”.
That coast, by the way, is the only thing we share with L.A.
K-Mart sold a similar jacket around 1970 in tan, navy and OD. Corduroy collar and all, except it had a by-swing back, for $16.
Did you look that up or is this the kind of information that you just happen to retain?
They’re handsome, versatile jackets. I’d love to have one. As for unnecessary utility, guess everyone should throw out their trench coats; the ordinary commuter isn’t exactly facing down the Hun in the mud.
I also like barn jackets and the closest I get to animals is the Central Park Zoo. So sue me.
Christian
I owned two. Very handy for upland hunting and installing electrical conduit for machinery.
Soul Vendor,
I don’t get to Oakland much.
M.J. Baskerville,
I’m from the Pacific Northwest, and we say “West Coast” as appropriate. I currently live on the Central Coast.
Wonderful–if you happen to think country squire conformity is a good thing.
In nylon? Horrible.
In moleskin? Acceptable.
The nylon versions always remind me of the quilted nylon/Dacron women’s bathrobes that were au currant in 1950s suburbia: https: e.g. at //img0.etsystatic.com/050/1/5730922/il_340x270.712400170_kbu9.jpg or at https://img0.etsystatic.com/050/0/5861199/il_340x270.694280394_m2u2.jpg
Fun fact: stylish New Yorker Bernard Madoff liked wearing a black (probably non-Barbour version) before he decamped (permanently) to Club Fed: http://media-1.web.britannica.com/eb-media/56/128056-004-D31CA7A4.jpg
Looks like a good opportunity for an Ivy Style Survey. This jacket is, as Robert Osborne would put it, an essential.
I don’t find it offensive. But, I wouldn’t wear one.
I possess a Barbour acquired from J. Press. The problem is that must of us have a jacket “problem”. I acknowledged mine many years ago. Yes a quilted Barbour would be welcome but unlike sweater and odd jackets there is a limit. The hall closet (and the one in the den) can only hold so many together with topcoats, windbreakers, parkas, barn coats, ski jackets and the like. Even the “essentials” number at least a dozen. It’s a problem.
@Henry
Like M.J. Baskerville, I made the mistake of assuming that you lived in So. California. As one who has the good fortune to have escaped from L.A. to San Francisco, and then to New York, I agree with him about San Franciscans not using “the West Coast”; that avoids putting those two totally different California cities in the same category.
Do people really use that term to include Washington and Oregon?
Isn’t that a bit confusing, like saying “I live on the East Coast” to mean South Carolina?
@wianno85
I would argue that there’s also a limit to odd jackets.
I have closets full of them, but only find myself wearing about five.
Unfortunately, this does not stop me from buying more.
I have considered purchasing one for some time but can never bring myself to do so. I own a Border and a Cowen Commando and I do not see why I would need a quilted Barbour. It is not waxed, so how well does it clean? It looks the “outdoors” business of other Barbours but does not seem as practical. Other Barbour exude form follows function. This not as much.
Of course I will cave and grab one eventually to brave the “countryside” of Capitol Hill.
Last spring, I purchased a cream Barbour Annandale quilted jacket as a brighter alternative to my navy Beadnell (and a less expensive option compared to a quilted Burberry). I wore the thing nearly every day. Best of all, it is washable. This past fall, I considered scooping up a navy quilted as a dressier option to my waxed jacket, but the weather turned too cold quickly. I adore Barbour quilted jackets and agree they feel a bit country–as in English countryside with horses–and quite like this about them.
Because of the brutal winter here in the Midwest I purchased an orange–yes, orange was my best choice–Marmot puffer coat. I wore it everywhere. Because when it’s -26* (with the wind chill, of course) style takes a back seat to freezing to death on a smoke break. So I say yea to the Barbour if it suits your climate needs.
I have a quilted moleskin jacket but not it’s Barbour, it’s Cabela’s.
I can identify with the excess of jackets. But after a recent trip to Europe I was able justify some of my outerwear. I was forced to layer up to keep warm in spite of dampness, drizzle, rain, and snow. None of this was Barbour, though, it was all Patagonia.
BTW, I’m an SF Bay Area native, and I say West Coast, or more often, West, since I no longer live on the coast.
I never owned a Barbour, don’t care for them.
If you like them, OK with me.
GHJ,
For me, “West Coast” means Washington, Oregon, and California, just as “East Coast” means the states running from Maine to Florida.
As I mentioned earlier, I’m from the Pacific Northwest. Upon reflection, it seems that we’re more likely to say “Pacific Northwest” than “West Coast,” thereby excluding California. Just as San Franciscans want to distance themselves from LA, we want to distance ourselves from California. Incidentally, the Pacific Northwest also includes Idaho, and sometimes even British Columbia.
@Henry
Idaho? I thought that state (along with Wyoming, Montana, and Nebraska) were just figments of the imagination.
Sun Valley, Idaho is quite a ski destination. Hemingway ended it there. Great steak too.
Upper middle class soccer mom wear.
Nay
Uh, no. Just no. I’d never say anything untoward about someone wearing one, but it’s not for me.
@DCG
It was made clear to me at a very young age that if one felt the need to go skiing, one went to Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, or Massachusetts, certainly not to Idaho.
But not, my dear Reactionary Trad, when one can go to Austria or Switzerland.
@Bags’ Groove
My grandfather preferred not to mingle with “foreigners”.
Damn, I was just about to use this headline for a follow-up post. Apparently I already have:
http://www.ivy-style.com/quilt-by-association-gentlemans-gazette-on-the-quilted-jacket.html
@ Reactionary Trad. How terribly quaint.
There’s nothing more tedious than reverse snobbery. Also, is parochialism a badge of honor now? How boring!
I love skiing Vermont, I learned how to ski there, but if you’ve never skied beyond New England it’s your loss. I hate meeting other Americans in Verbier anyway…the “foreigners” are more fun.
I’ve spent just about half of my 59 years living in NY and half my life in LA (Pasadena now). You’ve got it exactly right. LA, despite its size and wealth, is really a remote settlement, like Red Gap (as in “Ruggles of …”). However, the fictional Red Gap had charm. LA is just vulgar.
@ AEW
“Remote settlement” captures precisely my feeling about L.A. the first time I made an extended visit there. But I enjoyed myself nonetheless. I also got to realize that Pasadena isn’t L.A. Has that changed?
@RJG
Pasadena is as close as you can get to a nice eastern suburb here. That hasn’t changed.
That jacket is a definite NO for me. The deal-breaker is not the quilting, but that beastly logo on the left pocket.
Damn, I own the very model shown above – perfect for the Southeast, above the gnat line, where we have a slight winter. “Upper middle class soccer mom wear” and “quilted nylon/Dacron women’s bathrobes” are quite a jab, but I’ll keep wearing it.
Yes, it’s Preppy! Hunting, Fishing, and Sporty Outdoorsman style preppy. It’s the laid back kind of, I’m not really dressed. But, I’m not so underdressed. That’s, for the “usual” casual “off Campus” look. That’s only if you’re into that kind of thing. The Bedale style jacket is perfect, and looks very distinguishing paired with a driving cap. This jacket isn’t quilted but, one of my favorite options.
Emphatically, yes. It is an extension of the pond-crossing exchange programme and interaction between American and British sportsman.
Jeremy Clarkson wearing a quilted jacket:
http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-03-13/meet-man-who-brings-top-gears-jeremy-clarkson-life-farsi
its a staple of my old college trinity college dublin so yes there piratical and get better with age
No. Never. No way.