Why are military jackets back?

In a video shared to indie sleaze IG account @antipublicbar, the year is 2007 and the setting is a country house. The stars? A clearly slightly spannered Kate Moss and Pete Doherty having a singalong while wearing guardsmen’s uniforms, complete with hats and – in the case of a marching Moss – a gigantic Union Jack.

Fast forward to now, and the flag has become a marker of something murkier and darker in a heightened time of far-right sentiment (that’s not to say this wasn’t the case circa 2000s). But what of the jackets? Old-fashioned military designs like the ones worn by Doherty and Moss, as well as the rest of The Libertines, are very much in. With frocking, shiny gold buttons and the feel of a military commander, similar designs have been seen on the catwalk – At McQueen, at Ann Demeulemeester – and worn by celebrities. See: Jenna Ortega at the Dior show in September or Greta Lee, again in Dior, wearing a contemporary iteration of Napoleon Bonaparte’s old coat.

Elsewhere, at Aaron Esh’s SS26 show, cool Post Party kids stood circling the show wearing Hussar-themed jackets, looking on as Lux Gillespie opened the show. Paris designer Laura Andraschko weighed in on the trend, too, fashioning just one cropped velvet style for her show.

Right now, we might look at the Union Jack in fashion and raise an eyebrow at its renewed uptake. Before 2024, it was fair game, adopted by artists such as Corbin Shaw and designers like Galliano and Westwood as a jumping-off point for self-exploration. The jackets, however, seem like safer territory – at least until you begin to peel back the history.

If you were paying attention in class, you’ll know that European armies in the 19^th century, the very people likely wearing these jackets, were the weapon of colonisers – whether the British in India and the Caribbean, France in Africa or Russia in Central Asia. Professor Andrew Groves, the Director of Westminster’s Menswear Archive, doesn’t mince his words when asked about it.​“Fashion treats [these jackets] as beautiful artefacts, but they still carry the visual grammar of domination and violence,” he says.

Indeed, we’ve long repurposed military dress – from cargo pants to camo – into something to wear to the pub. But this specific type of military garb holds real historical weight. If the lowly soldiers would have worn army fatigues, these jackets are symbols of the elite. They were worn by the officers, aka the higher-ups, who could afford to commission these ornate designs.​“Dress uniforms reinforced the class divide within the army itself,” continues Groves.​“They were wearable hierarchies that signalled the authority and wealth of the empire through cut and cloth.”

The current interest in these jackets is down to much more recent history: they are part of a new love of the indie sleaze era, and images of The Libertines, Moss, who wore one to watch Babyshambles at Glastonbury in 2005, and Hedi Slimane’s indie army on the Dior Homme catwalk in 2000 – 2007. Biz Sherbert, host of the fashion and culture podcast Nymphet Alumni, says this era is the reference in most people’s minds.​“It has that association with the loucheness of rock’n’roll but at the same time, it’s beautifully ornamental,” she says.​“That balance is quite attractive to people.”

Crucially, these jackets also had a moment in the ​’60s, when reprobate rock stars like Mick Jagger and Jimi Hendrix wore them with a barely concealed smirk. Here they signified qualities that are catnip to any new generation: rebellion and irony. As a Black American, Hendrix in an officer coat – not dissimilar to the ones worn by Confederate Officers in the Civil War a century earlier – was a particularly loaded image.​“They weren’t celebrating the empire, they were mocking it,” says Groves.​“Hendrix’s jacket turned imperial costume into countercultural armour.”

The popularity of these jackets shows how meanings get layered onto clothing over time.​“I think the coat can’t be separated from that [the music heritage] at this point,” says Sherbert. If the ​’60s started it all, the Cool Britannia moment in the ​’90s is the touchstone for young people now. It’s the nucleus that brought us Union Jack fashion – and it’s arguably had a hand here too.​“Ultimately, these symbols have been totally incorporated into fashion history,” she adds.​“[With the Union Jack], people aren’t necessarily thinking​this is the Union Jack, the symbol of the United Kingdom and Her Majesty the Queen. They’re thinking of the Spice Girls. They’re thinking of Liam and Noel Gallagher and Blur.”

Groves believes the dilution of these types of symbols is part and parcel in the fashion industry; fashion flattens symbols like this.​“Fashion has always had the ability to reduce ideology into aesthetics, turning power into pattern,” says Groves. Sherbert, however, is more optimistic that this trend could become a form of resistance.​“I like the idea of people wearing the American flag or wearing the Union Jack and neutralising it, or bringing those garments back to centre a little bit,” she says.​“I think that reclaiming those [symbols] from narratives associated with extreme political views is probably a net good for society.” Whether or not we’ll be wearing an officer jacket this season, we can all hope that she is right on that point.