For a strange period in the mid-Noughties, menswear was #menswear: a conservative, traditional panoply that leaned into a very Mad Men understanding of what 'real' men looked like. The classics were riding high, especially if it was at the Roger Stone end of dandy, and even more so if it was made on Savile Row. They littered Essex pubs, and WordPress blogs, and street corners during the now defunct London Collections: Men, a fashion week for guys that liked shoulder robing overcoats. And they also liked safari jackets. A lot, actually.
Because, of all the menswear classics, the safari jacket was, and is, one of the most honourable. It frequently sat atop shirts, trousers and ties (Windsor knot, duh), and exemplified the sort of heritage that the #menswear episode so extolled. It was Great British menswear. Probably the only great thing this anaemic nation was doing during its colonial adolescence, too.
Defined by multiple pockets and a utilitarian slant (epaulettes, a self-belt and a khaki or desert shade are all classic attributes, making it almost interchangeable with its field jacket cousin), the safari jacket is usually made from a lightweight cotton drill or lighter poplin fabric. Which is purpose-built for the equatorial climes where it grew up. The safari jacket was a lightweight uniform of European soldiers in World War II, and was later a fixture of Ernest Hemingway, who even designed his own exclusive version with American clothier Willis & Geiger Outfitters. Wowee Ernie on that custom drip.
Long after Axis forces waved the white flag, the safari jacket kept firing on all cylinders. Designers like Yves Saint Laurent and Ted Lapidus were frequently pictured smoking and fashion-ing in polished, fitted versions, and the piece itself saw another boom in the Sixties and Seventies. The safari suit eloped with bellbottoms. Then, it retreated into its most traditional sense, and was co-opted circa 2008 by Surrey boys with strong jaws and good hair.
But on its travels, the safari jacket has veered off the beaten path. It's no longer a classic bit for classic dressers (there's still plenty of them though, if that's your thing). In the A/W '22 show window, big labels have bulldozed the traditional version of Saint Laurent and Lapidus. They're bigger, in every sense of the word, and, in step with the general tenor of menswear, they're wavier. Trippy, even.
Look to Prada, and the safari jacket was all shoulders and shaman. A cinched waist exaggerated the wide cut up top and down below. The sleeves fell far beyond the fingertips. And further still it went down the rabbit hole in a hallucinogenic, bright orange print that blurred Western scenes, snakeskin and desert flora. A sharp but pressing reminder to always empty one's boots out on the porch. Paul Smith was on a similar tack. Though instead of pure LSD illusion, the British designer went optical instead with closely-hewn geometrics that distort the safari jacket's shape. Look closely and risk a seizure. Wear with clashing checks elsewhere and be very Paul Smith.
Other labels remixed the safari jacket without going quite so left-field. Dior and Hermès arguably sat at the quieter end of the trip; the part in which the safari jacket intervals the full moon party with a week long visit from a deep-pocketed aunt and uncle. Under the steer of Dior's creative director Kim Jones, the safari jacket felt spiritually Parisian in a cushiony fit that offered plenty of angles around the hem and collar. A safari jacket, in its purest form, was never meant for city life. And yet Dior's A/W '22 ode to the Christian who founded the brand called his global legacy back to the place of its very creation. Monsieur Dior's safari jacket is more than at home in the 16th arrondissement these days. And for Hermès, it was moodier, and more technical, in black, oversized and replacing a belt for a zip (!!!). In a piece as storied as the safari jacket, that small technical update is decidedly modern, and divisively heterodox.
These small changes pose a butterfly effect for menswear at large. They add up. And, one zip here or there (in tandem with the occasional big and mad print) helps to push the envelope in a field that was once unapologetically anchored to the Old Ways. There are plenty of people still shackled to the #menswear era. Slowly but surely however, a classic-gone-rogue may help shepherd them into the new one.
