In the naval supply lockers of the early twentieth century, garments were listed by function. The peacoat — issued to petty officers and enlisted sailors — was marked as “7310-00-286-6743: Coat, Cold Weather, Wool.”
It was designed to do one thing: keep a man warm at sea.
Navy blue. 32 ounces of wool melton. Eight anchor-stamped buttons. A double-breasted front to block the wind. Broad collar turned up when the salt air came in hard. It hung low enough to cover the hips and cut high enough to climb ladders. Pockets deep enough for cigarettes or a folded photograph.
No insulation. No branding. No need.
It wasn’t called “iconic” then. It was just a coat.
Standard issue.
Photographs from the Second World War show the garment in full use.
Sailors in peacoats moving munitions across icy docks in Boston.
Men clustered on the decks of destroyers in the North Atlantic, faces chapped and pale, hands stuffed into pockets, watching the horizon.
The coat absorbed the years. Salt. Smoke. Oil.
It grew heavy with use.
Creased at the elbows. Worn smooth at the cuffs.
Faded where it met the light.
When a man left the service, the coat went with him.
It wasn’t turned in. It was kept.
And it began its second life — in cities, on ships, in basements and train stations. In the kind of places where a man didn’t speak much.
The cut hasn’t changed much in over a hundred years.
You still see them.
On the trains.
On TV.
In the back rows of cold churches at morning mass.
Sometimes it’s a younger man, who found it at a thrift shop — not knowing its history, only that it feels good. Heavy. Right.
Sometimes it’s on a man who’s had it since ‘68, and wouldn’t wear anything else.
The buttons get replaced. The collar pills. The lining thins. But the shape remains.
Solid. Unbothered.
Useful in all the ways that matter.
There are coats that dress a man up.
This is not one of them.
It doesn’t announce.
It doesn’t advertise.
It serves.
The name, like the coat, goes back.
“Pea coat” is thought to come from the Dutch word pijjekker —
pij referring to the coarse wool fabric used in sailors’ outer garments.
The British called it a “pilot coat.”
The Americans called it a “reefer.”
Eventually, the Navy just called it what the sailors did.
A peacoat.