Trench Coat

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. We think we know the trench coat, but where does it come from and where is it likely to take us? From its origins in the trenches of WW1, this military outer-wear came to project the inner-being of detectives, writers, reporters, rebels, artists, and intellectuals. The coat’s insurgent energy propelled imaginative leaps into the unknown. Trench Coat tells the story of seductive entanglements with technology, time, law, politics, trust, and trespass. So what is the distinctive appeal of the trench coat? In this book, readers follow the rise of this sartorial archetype through media, design, literature, cinema, and fashion. Steeped in history, but already exceeding its origins, the trench coat today anchors cinematic fabulations of future life-worlds. In violent imaginaries of futuristic bodies, buttoned and belted, the trench coat shape-shifts once more; this time from cherished icon to unsettling omen, a sign of disturbances to come. Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.