Six overcoat houses, three British and three Italian, and what to check on each before buying one used: the label, the cloth, the fit and the parts a tailor can and cannot fix.
A dense wool coat with a sound lining will usually outlive a finer cloth that has already started to pill.
Burberry built its name on gabardine, the weatherproof cloth Thomas Burberry developed in the late nineteenth century, and the trench coat remains its signature. The house also makes wool and cashmere overcoats, and secondhand listings often blur the two categories. Before anything else, confirm you are looking at a wool overcoat and not a cotton trench with a wool liner.
Older labels read "Burberrys" with an s, which helps date a coat. The fibre-content tag tells you far more than the model name does, so ask for a photo of it if the listing lacks one.
Aquascutum was founded in London in the 1850s, and its name is Latin for water shield, a reference to the shower-proofed wool it was first known for. The brand has changed hands several times since the 1990s, and production has moved with it. Coats from different eras can differ considerably in make and cloth.
The country-of-origin label is the first thing to read. Then judge the cloth by hand or by close photographs: a firm, dense weave matters more than the era printed on the tag.
Crombie began as a woollen mill in Aberdeen in 1805, and the brand gave its name to a whole style of coat: single-breasted, knee-length, plain and dark. Because the name is used generically, listings described as a "crombie coat" are not always Crombie.
Check the label, then compare the shoulder width and chest measurement against a coat you already own. A coat that fits through the shoulders can usually have its sleeves and length adjusted, but shoulders that are too narrow cannot be let out.
Loro Piana is a cloth maker first, based in Quarona in Piedmont, and its overcoats are most often cut from cashmere or very fine wool. Cloth this fine drapes beautifully but wears visibly at the points of friction.
Inspect the cuffs, the pocket edges, the underarms and the area where a bag strap would sit. Light pilling can be removed with care. Thinning cloth cannot be repaired, and it tends to show first at exactly those places.
Canali is a family-run Milanese house founded in 1934, and it sits in the middle of Italian tailoring: more structured than the softest Neapolitan work, more restrained than fashion labels. Its range covers several lines, so construction differs from coat to coat.
Press the front panels and lapel gently in photographs or in hand. A crisp, even surface with no rippling suggests the interlining has held. Bubbling across the chest means it has separated, which is expensive to fix.
Kiton was founded in Naples in 1968, and the house is known for the amount of handwork done in its Arzano workshop. That makes a well-kept example one of the most rewarding coats to find used, and also one of the most demanding to alter.
If the coat needs work, budget for a tailor who handles hand-made garments. A routine alterations shop can undo in an afternoon what the coat was built to do.
