Styling · The Outerwear Edit
The Barn Jacket
Quilted, cropped, waxed and suede — the jacket for the weeks when a trench is too polished and a coat is too soon.
Quilted, cropped, waxed and suede — the jacket for the weeks when a trench is too polished and a coat is too soon.
Here's the gap nothing quite fills. A trench is too polished for a Tuesday, leather has its place, and it's still far too early for a proper coat. That's the barn jacket's week, and it has arrived right on time.
It's back, but not the one you remember. The version that saturated everything a few years ago — corduroy collar, mid-weight cotton, worn with absolutely everything whether it worked or not — peaked and passed. What has replaced it is more considered: workwear-weight construction, cleaner proportions, and the collar detailing done properly rather than as a costume.
Designers have taken the silhouette well past its countryside roots and reworked it in quilted finishes, cropped proportions, waxed cotton and suede. Which is four quite different jackets under one name, and the reason this edit is split the way it is.
The colour story is simpler than with most outerwear. Olive, tan, washed khaki and off-white are the ones that earn their keep. Everything else is a novelty.
Below, nineteen of them — the quilted, the cropped, the waxed and the suede. Wear one over a fine-gauge knit and straight-leg jeans with loafers, or let the boxier shape offset tailored trousers or a silk skirt. The contrast is what stops it looking too literal.
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The one to reach for when a light jacket isn't enough but a puffer is far too much. Brunello Cucinelli trims theirs with shearling, Miu Miu keeps it clean, and Loewe puts a corduroy collar on it — the detail that says barn jacket more than anything else does. BLAZÉ Milano works in cotton corduroy matelassé, Burberry in quilted nylon, and Barbour's Kirby comes in at two hundred and eighty dollars, which is remarkable for what it is. Keep everything under it streamlined: a fine-gauge turtleneck, straight jeans, boots.
The boxy original swamps a lot of people, and the short version fixes it. Cropped sits at the waist rather than over it, which is what makes it work with a high-rise trouser or a full skirt. Prada does it in Re-Nylon, Balenciaga trims theirs in leather, and Nour Hammour's Bleeker is suede and the least expensive of the three. Pleated trousers, a tucked-in knit, loafers.
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This is the closest to the real thing, and it's the half that handles weather. Miu Miu's padded waxed cotton is the expensive answer to a wet Saturday. Brunello Cucinelli goes checked wool with leather trim, The Row's Frank is corduroy-trimmed cotton and about as quiet as outerwear gets, and Adam Lippes belts his at the waist. Still Here brings it under four hundred and fifty dollars. Dark denim, a crewneck, leather boots — the outfit for the days a trench feels too polished.
Suede is where the barn jacket stops pretending it has ever been near a field. Loewe's workwear high-low is the most expensive thing here and shaped like nothing else in the edit. Nili Lotan's Kedem is trimmed in leather, Khaite's Wyatt has the suede collar, and Nour Hammour's Barn Modern comes in brown at twelve hundred. Max Mara's soft suede in hazelnut is the one that will go with everything already in the wardrobe. Over a silk skirt, if you want the contrast.
Every piece in this edit, by the houses behind it. Explore them all.
Mine is the Prada. It's the only one here that doesn't look like it's referencing a barn at all — cropped, in Re-Nylon, closer to the city than the countryside. Stylish, cool, and it will still be right in five years.— K.W., Editor-in-Chief
Buy it for the weeks nothing else works. A barn jacket is the least demanding thing you will own, and it will still be doing its job long after the trend that brought it back has gone.— ESVRA