Fashion NOW. 25-27; Nvgard International holds a sample sale or Banca Nigard and Peter Nygard ladies” clothing samples tor huband holiday YS and spring and suminer “99, 9 aim. to 6 pan at the compa nv’s Showrooms, 103 Mainland in Yaletown. Into: 669-3000. TUESDAY, NOV. 24: The Bay presents Glitz & Glaim, a holiday cosmetics — event, 6:30 to 9:30 pam. at the Park Roval store, Special gifts with purchase on mast lines, live Vogue Intimate Apparel faxh- ion show, free makeovers, Photo L'Oreal Special guests: West Vancouver Calendar firemen. Wine tasting by Grapes on First. Door prizes. “Tickets: $10, redeemable towards cos- meties or fragrance purchase. Info: 925-14 TE. THURSDAY, NOV. 26: North Shore Neighbourhood House will host a Victorian tea party and Roaring °20s fash- ion show for seniors, 1} to 3 p.m. at 225 E. 2nd St., North Van. Cost is S10. All outtits for the fashion show are on loan from Burnaby Village Museum. Pre-register by call- ing 987-8138 or pick up tick- ets at’) North ~— Shore Neighbourhood House. NOV. 27-28: Frou-Frow holds a sample sale of chil- dren’s loungewear, baby’s layetre and women’s cotton lounge wear and silk lingeric, 10 a.m. to5 p.m. both days, at #301 - 318 Homer St. in Yaletown. Info: 682-5536. SATURDAY, DEC. 5: Marilyn's in Caulfeild Village hosts a champagne luncheon fashion show, 11:39 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the Imperial Avenue home of boutique owner Marilyn Diligenti. Tickets are $35, with part pro- ceeds to North Shore Family Services. Reservations: 925- 4110. FASHION FILE is a weekly Sunday column. If vour busi- ness or charity is planning a freshion event, fax your infar- mation as carly as possible to 985-2104. Or e-mail it wo layne@usnews.cone — Layne Christensen Sunday. Novermper 22. 1998 — North Snore News -- 15 north shore news a y is John Moore Contributing Writer THE retro-trend to big band music, swing dancing, elegant cocktails and elegant cocktail dresses (yes!) may at last be what it takes to stop men from dressing like undergrad- uate yobs and get into some adult male threads, No contemporary item of mate apparel carries such a weight of svm- bolism as the trench coat and, judging bv a recent tour of the racks, this clas- sic topcoat is reclaiming the high ground on turt it never really surren- dered. Invented by Thomas Burberry dur- ing the Firse World War, the original was.a belted owill cotton gabardine of exceptionally close weave, treated with a chemical finish that made the coat water-repellent, Cat higher than the heavy ankle- fengtit military “great coats” actually worn in the trenches, the trench coat retained the epaulettes and double- breasted cut of the military: unitorm and was quickly adopted) as an outer cow for officers, Versions of it remain in military use to this day and the now rather bland single-breasted, small collared belted raincoat or topcoat worn by business- men is its somewhat emasculated grandson. Despite the horrors of The Great War, which ought to have made people recoil from anything that suggested 2 uniform, military style continued to exert. a powertul influence on fashion during the decades that followed. Sold off as surplus in the millions, trench coats became the poor man's (and woman’s) raincoat during the Roaring Twenties and especially the depressed Dirty Thirties. Women’s suits continued to feature epaulettes and double rows of buttons, and the trend would reach its apotheo- sis in the para-militarv political move- ments of the 730s, Fascism and Nazism. The Nazi party in Germany very consciously and cynically played on the “uniform fashion” style ser by the Great War as part of its appeal to peo- ple whose lives were destroyed by the Depression, economic and _ political factors so far beyond their control that they longed for the simple politics of war. Burberry’s trench coat, however, had undergone a symbolic transtorma- don. In the vision of pulp fiction writ- ers and tilm noir suspense thrillers, it became the anti-uniform of the under- dog, the morally compromised secret agent and the cynical private detective. Many of these anti-heroes were characterized as jaded veterans of the First World War or the Spanish Civil War. Alan Ladd in This Gun For Hire, Humphrey Bogart in The Big Sleep and Casablanca, men who had seen war and death for ideals later compromised in political back rooms and came to stand for a new personal, individual code of justice. As Bogart said in Casablanca, “I stick my neck out for noe man.” But, of course, he did. Though Bogey only wears the coat b ® PASHION NEWS photo Mike Waketieia IN the fashion trenches... Writer Jonn Moore wears a grey twill coat by Acuman Collection and Supercraft snap-brim trilby, both Eaton's. in the final scene of Casablanca, it remains the benchmark trench-coat movie: the fog, mingled with gunpow- der, the plane, the urgency, the redemptive sacrifice of love on the akar of the good of mankind, all embodied in one lonely desperate man wearing 4 military coat from a past war, a man who only a few frames ago answered an SS major’s inquiry about his nation- aliry with the flip remark, “I’m a drunkard,” now stands only a few feet from the body of the same SS ran and tells his One rue Love to go with he husband and behave nobly because “the problems of nvo people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.” It’s the coat. Can vou imagine Bogey trying to put this line over in an all-season Gore- Tex convertible parka from Mountain Equipment Co-Op and a snow-board- ertugue? It wouldn’t fly, neither would Ingrid Bergman and there would be no Casablanca. Interestingly, in tilm noir, the trench coat became androgy- nous, worn by women like Bergman, Joan Crawford and especially Marlene Dietrich, it proclaimed the wearer a woman with a past, a woman of mys- tery and intrigue, usually dangerous as suggested by her adoption of the quasi-military uniform of a dangerous man. The dangerous man, the private investigator, the secret agent, has been described as a “knight without armouz” whose dark quest is the mate- rial of the modern suspense-mystery genre in literature and film. By an odd bit of synchronicity, their unotticial uniform, the trench coat, itself has an ancient: connection with knighily virtue. When Burberry designed it, he adapted existing designs thar had been developed during the 19th century. As men adopted long trousers in preference to delicate breeches and silk hose during the early part of the cen- tury, they no longer required the neck- to-ankle protection offered by the old frock coat or great coat. Shorter overcoats in various styles raised the male hemline to the knee or slightly above, tied out single-breasted buttoning (though this was confined to country dress) and experirnaemed with combinations of pouch-pockets, belted and beltless waistlines and rolled or unrolled collars. Some were known by the names of those who popularized the styles, like the Chesterfield coat favoured by the Lord of the same name, whe intlu- enced furniture style as well. A generic term often used to describe these short overcoats was “palerot” and the earliest use of that term is medieval French. A paleiot is the light silk coat a Knight wore over his armour, his “coat of arms” which displayed his own insignia or that of his Lord, in order to identify which side he was on ina field cluttered with men cach wearing 3 hundred pounds of anonymous hard: ware and bent on killing each other. The paietot made sure you whacked the right giv in the melee. One of the chief complaints of 19th century staff officers about the turn of the century decision te abandon the brightly coloured identifiing uniforms of the past, (the British “red coat” and the French blue). was that the new khaki, clive drab and field-grev made all soldiers, friend and foe, the colour of mud. Thev recognized the threat to social hierarchy implicit in the democ- ratization of the bartetield. Two mud coloured soldiers on a confused field are psvchologically disinclined to sce cach other as enemies and more likely to declare a spontaneous truce and identify. the senior officers on both sides (they of the spotless trench coats) as their common toe, as sometimes happened during WWI. The battered trench cour became the uniform of Everyman. As the symbol of the modern knight errant, the ueneh coat still packs a mythic semiotic wallop. When English comedian Peter Sellers: parodied the noir genre in 3 succession of decreasingly fanny Pink Panther films, he made a point of appearing at least once in every film wearing the classic Burberry trench coat. fc not only identified inim as the Detective; it anointed him, however monumental his blunders and gatts, as the Hero. If vou must have nothing but the real thing, vou can still vet the classic Burberry trench coat at Edward Chapman Men's Shop at 833 West Pender, but bring along $1495. Not something a Private Eve would want to bleed on of have unsavoury chapsecters put large-calibre holes in. Less pricey contemporary versions, whatever their style variations, haven't lost sight of Burberry’s original con- cept, but chemistry now contributes more than the water-repellent: treat- ment; it’s che source af the suede-like synthetic microfibre of the coat itself. Breathable, lighrwesght, it makes a slightly softer, less constructed coat than the stii¥ Second World War sur- plus one I wore for years. Dunn’s Tailors in Park Roval South carries a high-end version for $550, but their slightly more casual, lined tor winter, version preserves the bulky look of the original, which only came in Military Size Too (Too big or Too smali), at $350. The London Fog line retains the double-breasted styie, belted waist, wide collars and button cuffs, bur has eliminated the shoulder epaulette for a cleaner line, since men no longer need it to secure gloves or forage caps. At Eaton’s Park Royal, as at Dunn’s, gunmetal grey is the seasonal colour, though they are aiso available in black, blue and a tan “Engtish khaki” that’s a close approximation of the original, for $310. Eaton’s also carries the slightly less pricey Weatherman line for $229 and you can top aff the ensemble with a Supereraft: snap-brim trilby hatin matching grey or black at $59.99 for a look that might get vou followed by CSIS operatives and probably by mem- bers of the gender vou'd most like to be tailed by.