The padded jacket used to be associated with the kind of activities you would file under “unremarkable” – walking the dog, cycling to work, the school run. It was shrugged on without a thought. But no longer. Since last year, the padded jacket has been spotted in much swankier places than the bit of scrubby green near your house. It’s on the catwalk; on the backs of celebrities wafting through city streets, green juice in hand; on fashion bloggers who just so happen to be walking in front of street-style photographers outside of fashion shows. “Studied” would be an understated word here.
Of course, the padded jacket is also still that old reliable that keeps you warm without weighing you down, so continues to be worn by people such as Theresa May who have never heard of Instagram.
In a world where padded jackets are universally worn by prime ministers, bloggers, models and skiing celebrities, their meaning is a minefield. Here we decode the many incarnations of the padded jacket in 2017.
1 Skiing padded jacket
Meaning: you’re loaded
Skiing holidays = rich people, the kind who happily tell you what they earn and how many cars they have. The padded ski jacket of choice is reassuringly expensive – usually Moncler – and shiny, to garner extra attention.
2 High fashion padded jacket
Meaning: you’ll freeze for fashion
Demna Gvasalia is fashion’s current pied piper. In his debut Balenciaga collection, he put a red padded jacket over a jewelled polo neck. The way the model wore it – around her shoulders like an opera coat – has now been adopted by those who want to say: “I can’t afford the real jacket, but I’m so down with Demna that I’m willing to catch a chill to prove it.”
3 Conceptual padded jacket
Meaning: you go to Art Basel
Rick Owens put penises on the catwalk, and turned people into human backpacks. By contrast, his piles of padded jackets knotted around models for his AW17 show looked positively tame. That is, of course, until anyone tries this look IRL. This is one for the wearer who wants to be compared with art and is a heavy user of the thinking-face emoji.
4 Blogger padded jacket
Meaning: you live for the lens
It’s fair to say that a fashion blogger is all about clothing that photographs well – and her choice in padded jackets is no exception. The rule of thumb? The bigger the better. Marques Almeida’s oversized design is the alpha choice that implies getting through doors is a mere trifle when there’s an opportunity for a great picture.
5 Political padded jacket
Meaning: you’re on your way to a meeting. Can’t talk.
Sorry to disappoint the high-fashion crowd – but the PM isn’t attempting to do a Demna here. If anything, May’s is a trad take on Parisian chic: see the Chanel-style tweed jacket underneath. Add the folder with dividers and this is jacket means business, in an early-00s Wall Street commuter kind of way.
6 Practical padded jacket
Meaning: chilly out, isn’t it?
Clothes neaten up just at the sight of Kate Middleton. Rather than consider, say, a full Ivy Park athleisure look for a relay race last weekend, she went for real workout gear. This padded jacket – fitted, a bit prim, in a pretty colour – keeps you jolly warm on a cold day. That’s what they’re for, isn’t it?
