The Full-Length Overcoat Will Make a Comeback

But function hadn't been the whole argument even in the last heydays of full-length overcoats — the 80s and 90s. Then, it was already more of a fashion statement, hence the somewhat unseemly low button-stance, the broad neckline, the low gorge, and peak lapels that just sit too low — sometimes to make a statement you have to be different, and when the original way has been elegant the statement will either be exuberant or outright awful. (For those of us that appreciate the softness & lightness of a well-tailored cashmere coat, nonetheless, this also means the possibility of acquiring a lightly used one for what you'd normally pay for a pair of jeans, which are hard and heavy and the exact polar opposite of the smoothness a full-length overcoat offers.) In other words, when the function argument died out, the form argument carried the full-length overcoat for another two decades before it is finally "out".

As the world changes, and I believe the world changes by rhyming itself, the number of the selective few who savors life as it is and who sees through the games of money, fame, and power is likely to grow. Then, the full-length overcoat will make a comeback not as a statement of fashion but as a celebration of elegance, of fine craftsmanship, of pure enjoyment, of freedom, of style. I'm confident of this because while we pile our lives up with plastics we still remember to erect our monuments in materials more "worthy" of lasting memories.