Liberating Tweed

Tweed has a problem with its own reputation. It is one of the most beautiful, most durable and most versatile fabrics in existence — and yet it has been so thoroughly colonised by a single aesthetic that most women who wear it are wearing a version of the same coat. Structured. Belted. Buttoned to the throat. Male or even military in silhouette if not in intention. The kind of coat that announces that its wearer is going from or to the Country.

This is a shame for such a magnificent fabric.

The first failure is practical. Most thick tweed coats are cut tightly — which means that in the conditions in which tweed is actually worn, the coat does not work. Tweed is a winter fabric. Winter requires layers. Layers require room. A tightly cut tweed coat worn over a thick jumper produces one of two outcomes: the wearer looks like an overstuffed doll, or she cannot do the coat up at all. Neither is the look anyone was going for.

At EdNerat we cut our thicker tweeds in our generously shaped Cocoon styles. Our tweed coats are designed to be worn over substantial knitwear — a thick jumper, a heavy rollneck — without pulling, gaping or losing their shape. They are not shapeless. They are simply cut for the reality of how tweed is actually worn, in the actual temperatures that make tweed necessary.

The second failure is aesthetic. There seems to be a persistent assumption that tweed is a masculine fabric — rural, practical, serious — and that the correct way to feminise it is to either dress women like men, or to nip the style in tightly at the waist and throw on some gold buttons. The result is a coat that can look good on the lucky few — but which looks, at its worst, like a woman dressed as a man dressed as a woman. It is not always a flattering look on a curvier figure and it certainly doesn't look comfortable.

Finely woven tweeds are mostly ignored in womenswear. These can behave entirely differently under the scissors — can be cut into something genuinely feminine. Think bell sleeves, gathered shoulders or swing silhouettes. Coats with movement and lightness that happen to be made from tweed rather than despite it. Just because you are wearing tweed in a cold winter does not mean you want to look like you are engaging in cosplay. You want to look like yourself — warm, well-dressed and, yes, comfortable.

At EdNerat we make both. Generously cut coats in thick tweed for the kind of cold that requires serious layering. And prettier, lighter styles in finer tweeds that bring femininity and swing to a fabric that has been denied both for far too long. You can see our full tweed coat collection here.

Tweed is not just for the country. And it is emphatically not just for men.