The Lady in the Leather Coat Now and Then

The Lady in the Leather Coat Now and Then

I was twenty-six years old in 1999. I was in the last year of earning my professional degree. I got my very first email account in 1999 and it would be another two years before I started the Lady in the Leather Coat group page online. Less than one third of the US population owned a cell phone and I don’t recall if I did yet. Y2K was a serious concern and late night comedians made humorous predictions of what life would be like in the year 2000. Everybody watched Seinfeld and Friends on TV. Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace was the blockbuster movie of the summer, and a new science fiction film called The Matrix was a hit at the box office as well.

My taste for ladies in leather coats was well developed by this time. Leather fashion had been popular for most of my life and reached its peak. Mail order catalogs offered leather jackets, skirts, and pants practically year-round. City sidewalks were a visual feast of feminine leather beauty. The countless number of attractive women who swept about their daily lives in gleaming full length leather coats boggles my mind to even think about. I fervently daydreamed of being with such a sophisticated lady, but such an sleek siren seemed utterly out of my league in 1999.

That would change when I met a beautiful woman in 2004 who buttoned up a black leather maxi coat with carefree aplomb and made it a regular part of her wardrobe. The lady in the leather coat was no longer a mere fantasy for me. She became my wife and she rocked the look longer and better than any other woman I have ever known.

As it turned out, the prevalence of ladies’ leather coats climaxed simultaneous to my life experience with them and this can be attributed at least in part to the success of The Matrix in 1999. Carrie-Anne Moss played Trinity, slick and deadly as she swirled against gravity with a floor-length silhouette of liquid black vinyl. Initially her costume caused leather coats to surge with their greatest popularity ever. No other fashion statement could be more edgy, cool, or sexy. Online shopping was just taking off in those early years of the new millennium and clothing retailers marketed leather coats with the “Matrix” tag non-stop.

The Matrix was not alone in promoting this aesthetic. Underworld was released in 2003 featuring gorgeous Kate Beckinsale in a floor-length black leather duster. Both of these movies spawned a franchise of sequels, and along with television series like Dark Angel, The Pretender, and La Femme Nikita, ultimately succeeded at transforming the image of an attractive woman in a long leather coat from elegant and luxurious to campy and overdone.

And then, almost overnight, the lady in the leather coat was... gone!

Obviously, this cannot be entirely blamed on pop culture. Fashion changes by the season, so it is certainly not unusual for a type of clothing to go out of style. Leather coats remained a staple in women’s fashion for the better part of thirty years. But, between 2007 and 2010 the long leather coat rapidly began to disappear. Young women no longer bought them; turned off by the gothic, science fiction labels attached to them. Older women left them hanging in the closet or discarded them at thrift stores. Even my self-confident wife became disinclined to wear hers like she used to. Suddenly the leather maxi coat, white blouse, leather skirt, gloves, and boots that she strutted in for several years were “too much!”

By 2012 a lady in a long leather coat was virtually nowhere to be seen. Stores like Wilson's Leather that had thrived during the 1980s and 1990s now struggled to stay in business, and sadly some like Danier went bankrupt. JCPenney and Spiegel stopped mailing fall and winter catalogs due to the success of online advertising, and truly it no longer mattered because no models in leather coats graced their pages anymore.

The full length leather coat tragically shriveled into nothing more than a tiny cropped jacket that barely covered the wrist or reached the waist. Smooth-grained lambskin mutated into PVC or polyurethane which lacks the supple sensuality of genuine leather. I confess that I was quite despondent that this one material thing that always gave me so much pleasure had become obsolete. Even my own wife disowned it.

Society was changing in many ways, and often not for the better in my opinion. I increasingly found myself yearning for the way things were in 1999; when people weren’t constantly offended by everything, when they weren’t staring at their cell phones all day, when social media had not divided everyone according to their opinions… and when women shined in leather coats like there was no tomorrow.

Fashion designers did not give up on leather completely, but produced nothing close to the voluminous abundance of it in the 1990s. Notably, Valentino offered a long, hooded leather coat in 2015 that was photographed on the sidewalks of New York and Paris. Generally speaking, though, the long leather coat rarely strayed from the haute couture runway. Clothing retailers now defined a “long leather coat” as a three-quarter length jacket targeted toward older women. A double-breasted Burberry-style trench was marketed, but I never saw it worn. The only classic long leather coat widely available in the US after 2012 was sold by the company Metrostyle. Otherwise, there was a handful of vendors in Europe that continued to offer them such as Higgs Leathers, Next One Leather, Milpau Cuirs, and Start Ledermoden.

On a happy personal note, my wife slipped into her leather maxi coat again in 2014 and looked more spectacular than ever as I detail in Requiem for the Belle Epoque. Much to my gratification, she has gradually done so more often in the years since. She is really the only woman I know personally who still wears a long leather coat with any frequency; just one of the many ways she is so exceptionally beautiful and brilliant to me. Aside from her I have probably seen less than a dozen women in a long leather coat in the past decade. The hip-length moto jacket prevails, and indeed I saw an abundance of women sporting it in London and Paris in 2017.

Then in March of 2017 young model Bella Hadid was photographed leaving her hotel in a long single-breasted black leather coat and leather pants. I did not know who she was, and I questioned the date of the pictures because she looked like she stepped out of a fashion magazine from 1999. The classic coat she wore was by the Russian designer Situationist and Bella flaunted it in several public appearances along with a black leather blazer.

I was amazed and instantly wondered; was it possible that this young woman had enough influence to sway fashion with her sleek style? Was there hope? Could ladies’ long leather coats possibly make a comeback?

A double-breasted, belted black leather trench coat launched by Frame in fall 2017 apparently met with high demand after being worn repeatedly by A-list celebrities like Gigi Hadid, Sienna Miller, and Kendall Jenner. While this is certainly a good sign, the $2,495 price tag makes such a coat an untouchable luxury item for most people. Likewise, in fall 2018 Magda Butrym released a long black lambskin leather coat with real horn buttons and a 100% silk lining that was even more cost-prohibitive at $3,880; bested still by the sheepskin Attico Leather Trench priced at $4,140. All of these outrageously expensive garments have been “sold out” for months, indicating that there is indeed an exclusive clientele for leather coats.

But, will the long leather coat flourish again in mainstream fashion for the the everyday woman like it did in the 1990s? I am well aware that there are individual ladies who still enjoy wearing leather coats regardless of current trends, but they are the exception, not the rule.

Unfortunately, the long leather coat has not yet escaped The Matrix. Fashion editors seem incapable of observing a long black leather coat on a woman without immediately making a tiresome reference to the film, even if they are ostensibly praising the look. No matter how chic; a lady in a long leather coat always “channels The Matrix.” I don't know if these writers are actually that unoriginal, or if it is a passive-aggressive means of keeping leather coats marginalized to the gothic sci-fi underground, but the stereotype persists.

Regardless, there is Internet buzz that the leather trench is “the coat to have for 2019.” This is exciting and I sincerely hope it is true, although I suspect that it will take on a different aesthetic for Millenials than many of us are used to. The young socialites stepping out in flowing black leather coats now contrast them against sweatsuits, T-shirts, and sneakers. Genuine leather is far more rare than faux leather, both due to cost and modern sensibilities about what is “eco-friendly” and “cruelty-free.” Any shopping list of new leather coats posted in the past year includes only two or three made of cowhide or lambskin amid a plethora of PVC, PU, or “vegan.” Proponents of gender neutrality find the leather trench coat appealing as stylish unisex outerwear and designers increasingly tailor them in this mode.

Thus, if a new leather coat trend truly comes to pass, I fear I may be disappointed with the modern interpretation of it. Plain, minimalistic wraparound designs abound. Faux leather drapes very flat and its plastic surface is often devoid of the character of real leather. The high-gloss vinyl of patent leather coats evokes The Matrix far more than any lambskin and will promote the annoying cliché all the longer. Layering a sleek leather trench over a hoodie and high top gym shoes strikes me as a terribly mismatched outfit that negates the elegance of the coat.

The look that drives me wild is the same today as it was thirty years ago; a glamorous lady who vamps it up with voluminous hair, red lipstick, and a long black lambskin coat buttoned up over her curvaceous figure. Such a woman will never cease to turn my head. I am fortunate beyond measure to be married to a woman who embodies this image and I adore her for it. Perhaps I am overly nostalgic, but I fondly recall when women dressed this way by the thousands. And I look forward to a time when the lady in the leather coat is everywhere to be seen once again like she was in 1999.

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My inspiration for this post came from the idea of comparing and contrasting ladies' leather coats from the past thirty years with the way they are advertised now. I share the following gallery of photos to demonstrate how leather coats have changed.

Now                                                     Then 

Probably the best way to finish off this post is with young Kaia Gerber dressed in a leather trench coat now and her mother Cindy Crawford in a long leather coat twenty years ago.

And lastly, if you would like to snag a trendy leather trench coat the ERMA leather trench is still available through Larmarque for $695, but probably not for long https://www.lamarquecollection.com/products/erma-black-leather-trench-coat?variant=18250639704122