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Our series of brands doing one item of clothing especially well continues with the iconic Barbour wax jacket

If you want to learn about the history and anatomy of the Barbour Wax Jacket, go speak to Gary Janes at Barbour HQ in South Shields. Barbour’s Design and Development Manager exudes wisdom. Dealing with the jacket’s evolution on a daily basis, Janes also set up the company’s jacket archive, which contains items that date back over a hundred years and catalogues that go back even further. When I ask him where it all began, he walks over to a pale ragged overcoat with a beacon label. “The Uncle Harry’s Coat.”

To understand a Barbour jacket, Janes tells me, you need to understand the origins of Barbour, and to understand the origins of Barbour, you need to first consider their home in South Shields. Situated at the the mouth of the River Tyne, the area was a crucial hub for coal, steel and shipbuilding from the industrial revolution onwards. Seeing an opportunity to clothe a large, mainly male workforce, founder John Barbour headed down from Scotland to supply them with waxed garments.

As Janes points out, the idea of oiled clothing was nothing new. “What fisherman used to do, going back to the 1400s, was have cotton jackets to keep warm, layering up with wools and things like that.

One way of protection [was] when they were gutting out the fish, they used to spread oil onto their own jackets. Just spread it all over. It wouldn’t make them completely waterproof, but it would make them more waterproof.”

Further protection came in the form of tar (which was used for waterproofing wooden boats, hence British sailors being called ‘Jack Tars’), but when the tar dried and became brittle, garments would crack at the elbow, allowing water to seep into a sensitive temperature receptor – hence “the elbow test.” The perfect medium between a pungent fish oiled coat and a crunchy tar mac? The waxed jacket.

A mixture of beeswax and other chemicals were originally used for the fabric, with copper sulphates added to make the fabric rot-proof, giving the fabric its green colour. “The great thing about waxed cotton,” Janes tells me, “[is that] it’s a non-static fabric. It dries out where it wears. [The jackets] become quite personal quite quickly and they also mould to your own body. When it’s cold, they go a bit harder and when it’s warm they go a bit softer. They live and breathe.”

The first throws of the Barbour jacket as we know it, came in the form of the ‘Gamefair’. Moving away from kitting out the industrial masses, Barbour turned their attention to outdoor leisure pursuits and in particular, fishing. It’s here that the evolution of specific features begins. The ‘bellow pocket’ (‘cargo’, if you’re American) appears at the bottom of the jacket and storm cuffs are incorporated into sleeves so that when you lift your arm, water doesn’t trickle down to the elbow. The ‘Beaufort’ soon followed, setting the scene for the quintessential Barbour jacket, with production continuing to this day.

Despite being absorbed into fashion, the Barbour waxed jacket has never sacrificed practicality. As Janes talks me through each coat in the archive, there’s pragmatic reasoning behind every detail. Most wearers won’t spot it, but it’s there. Janes and his team couldn’t physically attempt to approach a waxed jacket without pragmatism in mind. Hand warming breast pockets remain robustly stitched, even if they no longer serve their original purpose of a place to keep hands warm whilst supporting a gun in the crook of the arm. The ‘Beedale’ sugar cube pockets (for horse riders) may have been replaced, but the lower back button vents still remain, with horse riders in mind so that the back of the jacket falls over a saddle.

Even the iconic Barbour tartan has an ulterior motive. Granted, founder John Barbour’s Scottish heritage plays a part, but so does tartan’s ability to camouflage dirt, which proves helpful in a garment that you can’t wash. Janes continues to show me a host of jackets of varying ages, some for leisure pursuits, others military issue, but all have in common a sense of identity and pragmatism. That, and they all look timeless. The sort of jackets that even when hanging lonely on the peg, hint at a life well lived.

To this day, waxed jackets are still made over the road from the Barbour headquarters in Simonside. The factory can produce up to 50 different styles, however the key styles made there are the classic waxed jackets; Bedale, Beaufort (men’s) and the Beadnell (women’s). The factory has an approximate output of 120,000 – 140,000 jackets per year. The process itself is one of extreme precision, more so than most. A Barbour jacket has to be waterproof and a slip of the machine would foil its purpose. As well as producing jackets at Simonside, Barbour also repairs them.

The jacket repairs department rivals the archive, with its rails of beautifully worn and damaged garments. The demise of each is written on an attached label and although most have been worn from years of usage, others have more unique stories. Dogs, jealous partners and a variety of agricultural equipment have all torn their way through prized jackets and it’s a testament to the quality of the product that people insist on repairs. Rumour has it that when the Queen is offered a new waxed jacket, she politely declines and instead insists on repairs.

When quizzed on another brand doing one thing well, Gary suggests Anonymous-ism socks but due to the folks from Danner boots touring the factory with us, it’s also worth mentioning them. Like Barbour, the Oregon-based bootmakers reflect their Portland home and produce a unique product that has been partially absorbed into fashion, but still prides itself on being optimised for function. They, more than most understand a garment that is worth investing in, that becomes personal, that serves its purpose and only gets better with time.

Words by Davey Brett
Image Credits by Davey Brett