On a dewy June day two years ago, Nicola Brown, head of womenswear for Barbour stepped into designer Erdem Moralioglu's London studio. It was like a treasure trove, she recalls, with old fabrics, antiques and history books strewn about. Erdem, modern British fashion's most beloved history buff and romantic, had decided that his upcoming spring/summer 2024 show was to be all about the life of Deborah “Debo” Cavendish, the Mitford girl turned Duchess of Devonshire. His pièce de résistance? A blend of Debo's favourite Barbour trenches with one of the many 1940s opera coats she swanned about in at Chatsworth House. “He was sharing everything from colour palettes, mood boards, fabrics, prototypes—I completely fell in love, honestly,” says Nicola with a warm chuckle. “Before I knew it, I agreed to collaborate on his show, and then I realised I had to actually go back and tell the business it was happening.”
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Barbour, a 130-year-old, family-owned heritage label is best known for its hardy wax jackets but has slowly begun entering the high fashion space thanks to sold-out collaborations with the likes of cult Scandi label Ganni and influential tastemakers like Alexa Chung. Perhaps driven by the rise of gorpcore, or simply fatigue with the hamster-wheel of TikTok fashion trends, consumers sought refuge in sturdy heritage brands like Barbour, who have enjoyed a steep resurgence in popularity in recent years. In unpredictable times and an even more unpredictable climate, people are drawn to something that can help them face the elements.
This collaboration with Erdem, however, marked Barbour's first-ever showpiece and runway appearance. How would the public react? Turns out, they couldn't get enough. So much so that Nicola and Erdem has now spent the last six months creating a commercial collection to meet demand.
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“I didn't expect the reaction from the media, and the industry to be as strong as what it was,” says Nicola. “Originally we'd kind of said, 'Oh, it's just going to be a showpiece, we won't take it to production, we can't possibly.' But then it was so phenomenal, we decided to go into business." The collection will need a few tweaks of course. After all, wax jackets in “big, couture volume” as Erdem puts it are not exactly conducive to commuting on the London tube.
So Erdem mined Barbour's deep archives to study the construction of the brand's iconic coats, becoming enamoured by pieces like a glossy black shiny vinyl raincoat from the 60s and 70s. The resulting Barbour x Erdem, a couture-meets-countrywear commercial collection, which drops on January 28, features Barbour's classic, pragmatic silhouettes with Erdem's feminine twist.
Barbour's classic Beaufort jacket, for instance, maintains its masculine collar and heavy chords, but with the shadow Erdem's delicate flower print, almost like the stain of a pressed flower in a beloved novel. Some obvious manipulations of the silhouettes aside (The Dhalia, for instance, features an exploded peplum waist and detachable tartan hood) Erdem's attention to detail extends even to the placement of the prints. “He makes sure that a print hits a certain place in the body, or that it repeats perfectly at the seams,” says Nicola. “It's not something you might notice at first, but it's what makes each piece so special.”
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For Erdem's part, he enjoyed the challenge of applying his delicate techniques to the water-repellent cloth. “There’s something wonderful about the structure of the waxed cotton," he says. "It was really interesting to see how the shapes translate in the material. They seemed to take on a new life.” The Canadian-born, London-based designer grew up close to nature, often drawing inspiration from its abundant source, and is rarely seen without his beloved classic olive-green Barbour jacket. “Where I grew up in Canada, there was a big lake at the end of our street and our day-to-day lives were very much dictated by the elements,” he says. “In winter you would ski, in summer you would swim. The weather and nature were always quite extreme. I think that has always stayed with me. The idea of the extremes of nature.”
Wax coats are special because they often accompany these mud-soaked adventures, be it those Christmas day walks with the family or daring treks with a date, and are therefore steeped with memories. Thankfully, they are constructed to last a lifetime.
“I bought my first Barbour jacket from a vintage store when I was an 18-year-old student, and I'm 44 now so I've had it for quite some time,” says Nicola, who considers herself a custodian of Barbour's impressive family legacy and hopes to steer it further into its fashion-forward future. “I'd love to be able to give my daughter or son some of these collaborations one day and hopefully somebody will say ‘Oh that was the piece from when Nicola Brown was there.’”
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The Barbour x Erdem collection launches on January 30 and is available on Barbour.com.
