New winter wear

Impatience, male vanity - call it what you will - I felt the need for a new winter coat. While my M-65 field coat is supremely comfortable outerwear for temperatures as low as -20C, wearing it every single day from late-November to late-March gets a bit, well, monotonous.

So what do I do? - I buy an M-65 fishtail parka. Same concept - US Army garments are hard-wearing, practical, comfortable and... well, iconic. Made in the USA. The American military would never outsource its clothing supply to China.

The Parka, Extreme Cold Weather comes with Liner, Extreme Cold Weather, Parka, and optional Hood, Winter, W/Synthetic Fur Ruff. The detachable liner and hood will both fit into the M-65 field coat. The fishtail bit... the two flaps at the back of the parka enable the wearer to tie the double drawstrings about the thighs for added warmth and mobility.

The obvious advantage of the parka over the field coat is its length; I can wear the parka over a suit without having to tuck the bottom of the jacket into the coat (having suit jacket showing from beneath the hem of a coat is a grave fashion faux pas).

The US Army parka just comes in olive green, unlike the field coat, which is available in several plain colours including black, navy blue and écru, as well as in woodland and desert disruptive camouflage patterns.

Regular readers will know I have a thing about the USA in the late-40s and early-50s; this particular coat is mid-60s but somehow still feels right for me. The predecessor to the M-65 was the M-51 parka (from, of course, 1951), but that has a fixed hood. That was the one worn by mods - the subculture group that tore around England on Vespas and Lambrettas in the mid-1960s (as featured in the film Quadrophenia).

Mine was from the Militaria shop in the underground passage between W-wa Śródmieście and W-wa Centralna stations, 310 złotys (plus 50 złotys for the hood) around £80.

World's best male outdoor tailoring? The US Armed Forces!