The Perfect Barn Coat

They can and are used for everything from horse grooming to attending the races which is why I think of Barbour's Beaufort as the perfect barn coat. Rain or shine, the Beaufort is at home out back with its pockets full of shotgun shells and equally appropriate for a long day of browsing too many antique shops. And they're more democratic than you might think - they sold me one and I don't own a single Land Rover.

The Beaufort features a waxed cotton shell, a turn-up corduroy collar and cotton lining with a snap-closed throat and storm cuffs for protection against the elements. The snap-front conceals a wallet pocket and a full-width rear game pocket with side zips, and two front bellows pockets and two moleskin-lined hand-warmer-pockets provide plenty of stowage.

Like too few good things, the Beaufort is even relatively affordable. I've seen them for less than $275, a bargain in this age of depreciated greenbacks. Mine needs re-waxing, and now that Spring is showing itself in California I will send it out so it's ready for next year.

A Conspiracy Against Coats

I've never understood the automakers' conspiracy against coats and hats. After all, automaker executives at least theoretically go out into the outside world, and you'd think they'd need coats in a Detroit winter. And hats - perhaps the most important reason my father stopped wearing hats was that there wasn't enough headroom to wear his hat while he drove. But, as I wrote yesterday, fifty years later there's still no place to store a coat or a hat in the passenger compartment of an automobile.

Compounding the problem, now that cars have good temperature control it's difficult to ride in them with a coat on. So we're forced to stand in the cold and remove our coat before we get into our cars (I usually put mine in the trunk). And then go out into the cold to put our coats on again. It's such fun in a cold driving rain or a snow storm!


Of course, there's absolutely no reason that coat wearers should have to suffer like this. The photos are of the passenger compartment of a Maybach, a luxury sedan that is to Mercedes as Lexus is to Toyota. For the price of a small airplane it offers every conceivable option, including a pull-out drink service cart. But you won't find a place to store a coat while you ride unless you commission something bespoke.

Why the conspiracy against coats?

Patterns of Spring

Our spring comes earlier than some, and by evening yesterday the temperature was perfect for a topcoat. As you know, topcoats are not as warm as overcoats. They are made from lighter cloth than their winter counter-parts, and are typically shorter which incidently lets them better accommodate autombile travel (and why has no-one built coat storage into autombiles, I ask - but that is for another time). And they are ideally tweed. The topcoats that is, not the automobiles.

What tweed provides us besides water shedding properties and warmth is a wide variety of patterns, and the illustration shows a couple of nicely bold choices. I believe that at least one coat in every man's wardrobe should be something other than a solid. Keep your solid colored cashmeres and vicunas (well, perhaps you could send me the vicunas). Wear a patterned coat in Spring.

Autumn's Covert Coat

Autumn's most useful dress coat may be the covert, a topcoat that's named for a cloth that's named for a thicket where game birds may shelter (as we shall see the brush played a role in the coat's design). I like it because it's city wear that, unlike its relative the chesterfield, is also appropriate in the country.

Covert cloth is a fawn-colored, medium weight (18 ounce) twill-weave fabric that's sturdy and warm. It's principal use is in the eponymous coat, which is supposed to be single-breasted, fly-fronted, and knee length. It is characterized by four rows of stitches on each sleeve cuff and on the bottom hem that were intended as reinforcements to minimize wear that might occur while the wearer was riding through those thickets.

The classic covert coat has two side pockets and an interior game pocket that's just right for the day's newspaper. A brown or green velvet collar is an option for a dressier look and particularly appropriate for men who, like the dandies of old, wear their hair long enough to leave marks on their collars over time. After all, it's easier to replace a bit of velvet than the entire coat when you can't find new collar fabric.

Reasonably authentic ready to wear versions of the covert may be found at London's Cordings for £425.00 including VAT (about $680 ex VAT) or New & Lingwood for £450.00 including VAT (about $720 ex VAT). It's a bit more difficult to locate in the United States - the "covert" shown at New York's Alan Flusser Custom Shop, for example, is undoubtedly a very nice coat but it's definitely not a covert.

Unseasonably Cold

Shortly after reading about New York City's coldest August day, I was riding on the Avenues near San Francisco's Great Highway where I noticed people wearing heavy sweaters and parkas to keep warm. The weather made a reader's question about overcoats seem timely; he asked what might fall between the formality of a city coat, such as a polo or a covert, and an informal coat, like a Barbour or a shearling jacket. To me, that would be a country coat for wear over a jacket.

My own country coat is a light tweed topcoat with Raglan sleeves like the one worn by the man carrying the oar, above, but then I live in a place where the temperature might get down to freezing once every five years.

In colder climates the answer is something like the Ulster in the illustration above, made from 22 ounce or heavier (if it can be found) tweed. Brown or tan is the classic.

Gray or blue cloth makes for an in-between version that can be worn on informal occasions in the city.

Much as I like tweed, I'm not really ready for cold weather. Fortunately, in the Bay area, summer doesn't really begin until after Labor Day.

A Closet Full of Coats

A man needs a coat, or several of them, for the rain and the snow.

Every wardrobe has to start somewhere. If you have one coat it should be a tan raincoat with a zip-in lining that will help keep you warm when the temperature falls below freezing.

Your second coat should be designed to get you to and from your work in cold weather, like the navy guard's coat in the drawing. Less useful than a raincoat in the rain, an overcoat can literally keep you from freezing on very cold days.

Variety being the spice of life, larger wardrobes have five or more coats for different purposes. In addition to the raincoat and an overcoat, you could constructively add a topcoat, like the covert coat pictured in the center of the drawing, for milder days.

A more formal overcoat, such as a charcoal Chesterfield with a black velvet collar, will be more appropriate than a conventional coat at solemn occasions and in the evening.

Finally, a tweed coat with raglan sleeves will look fitting worn over tweed suits and odd jackets.

We differentiate between overcoats and topcoats because a topcoat is four to six inches shorter than an overcoat and less cumbersome on a train or in an automobile. It's also lighter.

Coat fabrics come in several different weights. Very heavy overcoat fabrics, suitable for a Moscow winter, weigh as much as 30 ounces and are increasingly difficult to find today. Normal overcoat fabric runs 20-22 ounces, and topcoat cloth 17-18 ounces. In warmer climates such as Naples or San Francisco, topcoats may be made from suiting fabric weighing as little as 13 ounces.

The classic colors for overcoats and topcoats are the usual navy, charcoal and tan. For variety, you should acquire one of each color before considering a second or third in a similar color. For example, your closet might contain:

• Tan raincoat
• Charcoal Chesterfield
• Navy guard's coat
• Fawn covert coat
• Brown and cream houndstooth tweed

If you prefer other choices, such as a camel polo coat instead of the navy guard's coat, you can maintain color choices in your closet by substituting, for example, a black and white herringbone topcoat for the covert.

If you've earned an indulgence this winter, remember that coats may be the best opportunities to employ luxury cloth in your wardrobe. Cold weather is significantly less uncomfortable when you're wrapped up in a cashmere overcoat.

A Tweed Coat Story

Many of my favorite articles of clothing have histories attached to them. This is the story of a tweed topcoat that took about two years from thought to realization.

The best source I've found for ideas on classic men's clothing are drawings of what men were wearing in the 1930's. Most of those are found in back issues of the late and lamented Apparel Arts magazine.

The drawing to the left of a topcoat for country wear struck a cord with me. I needed a light coat to wear over a jacket in the Northern California countryside and this design seemed just right. Unfortunately, I didn't see a cloth that I liked in the swatches that were available to me at the time. So, like many other of my clothing ideas, it went in a drawer and stayed there for a while.

Months later, I stumbled upon Magee in Dublin. The parent company of Magee is the largest weaver of Donegal tweed and Magee Shops in Ireland and the UK offer lengths of it that have been hand woven by artisans using traditional manual looms. Magee showed me swatches of a blue 15 ounce cloth that was a blend of mohair and wool, with nubs of maroon and other colors, and I ordered a length. It was out of stock but arrived eventually. When it did I sent it to my tailor.

When the coat finally arrived it was Spring, and the coat sat in my closet for most of a year before I got a chance to wear it. But when the weather finally turned cold it was perfect. It looks comfortable with tweed caps and over tweed suits. The cloth repels moderate amounts of rain, and the weight is just about right for the Northern California winter. Best of all, I get more wear from it than I do from a covert coat made from 18 ounce wool because, unlike the covert, the sun can come out and the temperature rise without my starting to perspire.