This season, military-inspired tailoring gets a playful remix. All of the industry’s leading designers have leaned into a range of uniform-adjacent looks. Drawing inspiration from sharply tailored, shiny-buttoned, structured silhouettes, outerwear is transformed into a range of sophisticated, refined, and artful takes on traditional rigidity.
Louis Vuitton teams a double-breasted peacoat with graphic-printed leggings and shearling-lined booties, while Valentino drapes a fur-trimmed pelisse over relaxed, wide-leg trousers and checkerboard Vans.
The styling lesson is simple: Lean into unexpected proportions, textures, and patterns to reframe heritage cuts. Giorgio Armani’s snug hussar jacket gains dimension with parachute pants, and Dior’s Napoleonic stand-collar jacket finds fresh elegance layered over an opulent ruffled blouse. Dsquared2’s deconstructed cap-sleeve blazer is styled with Y-front knit shorts and bumster denim. Proof that the most compelling uniform is the one you invent yourself.
Military uniforms have been around for thousands of years, to be sure, but in the world of fashion, it wasn’t until the ’60s and ’70s that the key characteristics of the regimented look entered the mainstream. In the U.S., protestors began repurposing military attire for everyday life, turning the styles into potent anti-war symbols and intertwining fashion and counterculture.
Over the decades, under the direction of the world’s most legendary fashion designers, military-adjacent outerwear took on a whole new life.
Towards the ’90s, uniform-inspired looks underwent a technological evolution, becoming industrial and structural, as seen on the runways of labels like Helmut Lang, which introduced parkas, overcoats, and vest with components typically seen on military attire.
As the mid-2000s inched onward, the dramatic, ceremonial looks of centuries long past manifested on the runways, leading to today’s surplus of structured jackets, heavy-duty outerwear, and intricate detailing.