The Barn Jacket Is Still Fashion’s Hardest-Working Fall Coat Trend
From Prada's luxury version to Carhartt's rugged staple piece, this is the in-crowd's style fixation.
Google “best barn jackets," and you’ll soon learn that they’re a great, insulated outerwear option to throw on at dawn to bail out the hay and feed the chickens—not to mention durable enough to withstand the pruning of notoriously thorny blackberry bushes. Outdoorsmen will refer you to the best hardworking options from Carhartt, L.L. Bean, or Dickies, and tell you about each brand’s pros and cons.
But head to TikTok, and you’ll find the discourse much different. There, discussions about Carhartt’s $120 chore coat consider it a savvy fall jacket alternative for Prada’s intentionally worn-in $3,500 version. Walking the streets of Paris during their bi-annual fashion week, a line wrapped around the block at the Carhartt store in Le Marais, but the Parisian set isn't the only one coveting the style. Creators and Marie Claire’s very own Editor-in-Chief Nikki Ogunnaike (who discussed just this in her Self Checkout newsletter last spring) are also fond of the barn, chore, and field (i.e., hunting) jackets that have become ubiquitous across most modern heritage brands, including J.Crew, Toteme, Everlane, Alex Mill, and Barbour (the British-based company made one of Queen Elizabeth II’s favorited styles). Kamala's pick for Vice President Tim Walz is also a barn jacket wearer.
Before the internet fan base and long before social media adopted the coat as a transitional jacket for their capsule wardrobes, their draw was hard work and much less play. Designed towards the end of the 19th century in France, the original style, crafted from an ultra-durable woven moleskin fabrication, was intended as a uniform for manual laborers and farmhands. Around the 1890s, in the Midwestern United States, the Carhartt brand developed its calling card chore coat in Detroit, Michigan. In the 1930s, the signature corduroy collar was added, followed by slight tweaks to the silhouette, pocket design, and hardware. The jacket became widely revered by rugged workmen across all trades.
Fashion darling Eva Chen styles a cropped version of Carhartt's chore coat with denim.
In 2024, amidst a popularity surge, the coat is an arbiter of good taste and personal style—and a celebrity crowd favorite, whose fans include Katie Holmes, who wore a striped barn jacket out in New York City, Hailey Bieber with micro shorts, and Kendall Jenner, who sported the work jacket trend as festival attire. It's also an if-you-know-you-know kind of status symbol if you invest in a designer version—regardless of its origin and use case. There's also a slew of new options that came down the runway for the Spring 2025 season and a potential competitor in the comeback of the windbreaker next spring. But until then, who can argue with a jacket that delivers on pragmatism, handsome looks, and multi-season versatility? Not us!
This Way to More Fall Chore Coats, Barn, and Field Jackets
