The Case Against the Boxy Bouclé Jacket

The Case Against the Boxy Bouclé Jacket

Bouclé is one of the most beautiful and sophisticated fabrics in existence. Looped, textured, virtually creaseless, it catches light in a way that almost nothing else does. It is also, in the hands of most of the fashion industry, imprisoned in a single silhouette: the boxy, collarless, hip-length jacket that has been sold to women — and specifically to women of a certain age — as the height of elegance for the better part of a century.

We disagree.

The classic bouclé jacket flatters one body type: an athletic one. Coco Chanel's one. And as she proved, on a slim, narrow frame it is undeniably chic. On anyone else — on the majority of women, in other words, and on most women over fifty whose bodies have changed in the ways that bodies do — it encases rather than moves. It adds width where width is not wanted. It ends at exactly the wrong point on the hip. It announces itself and then does nothing further for the woman wearing it.

At EdNerat, we drape bouclé rather than construct it. Our A-line bouclé coats fall away from the body rather than sitting on it, skimming the hips and creating a long, lean line that works for a far wider range of shapes than the boxy alternative. Our hourglass bouclé coats define the waist and then fall gracefully out and away, doing the work that good tailoring is supposed to do: making the wearer look and feel elegant without demanding anything of her in return.

We source our bouclé from Linton Tweeds in Cumbria — the same mill that has woven for the great couture houses for decades — but we use it entirely differently. Where the industry cuts bouclé into rigid, structured shapes, we cut it into coats that move. Coats that are as elegant worn open as they are worn closed. Coats for women who are living in their clothes, not posing in them.

Our bouclé coats are entirely handmade in London, cut and finished by skilled hands. They are available in sizes 6 to 20, and we offer fully bespoke sizing as a matter of course — because a coat should fit the woman wearing it, not the other way around.

We also use bouclé in colours and patterns that the industry rarely touches. Alongside the classic creams and blacks, we work with Linton in saffron, damson, rust and multicoloured mixes that are closer to a painting than a conventional fashion palette. We buy our bouclé in short runs so that our wearers really do feel one in a million — rather than run of the mill when they wear their coats.

A well-made British bouclé coat, cut generously to drape rather than meanly to confine, is among the most versatile and enduring garments a woman can own. It will take her from a morning meeting to an evening occasion without a change of clothes or a moment's anxiety. It will last for years. It will not date. It will pack and travel like a dream.

It will not, however, be boxy. That much we can promise.