Saving up for a real-deal Barbour instead? Check this guide first.
Fall is just around the corner, which means, as the ancient proverb goes, it’s nearly time to really starting dressing. More specifically, it’s nearly time to really start contemplating the jackets you’ll be wearing once those steamy morning commutes turn to windy crosstown journeys. Not sure where to start? Well, the obvious answer here boils down to a name you’re probably familiar with: Barbour, the heritage British label whose waxed canvas jackets remain the Kleenex of the genre—so damn good they’re practically synonymous with the style.
The only downside, of course, is that Barbour’s genre-defining raincoats tend to run a pretty penny, and their ubiquity doesn’t make them feel like much of an insider flex. So imagine our delight this week when, trawling the depths of the worldwide web, we stumbled across a surprise restock of Uniqlo’s unabashed Barbour dupe, a lightweight, boxy jacket—blouson, if you’re fancy—for well under a hundred bucks.
Like the quintessential English countryside slickers that inspired it, Uniqlo’s jacket features a handsome corduroy collar and is crafted from a sturdy all-weather cotton. But those aren’t even its main selling points: the real X factor here is the extremely 2024 cropped body that your entire FYP is talking about right now, which is only made better by the slouchy raglan sleeves it’s attached to. The fact that it’s designed to hit right around your belt line isn’t just an aesthetic flourish, either—the shorter length means you won’t accidentally sit on the wet end of your jacket when you park your tuchus on a crowded subway.
Cotton isn’t as effective as Gore-Tex at protecting your upper half from a downpour of biblical proportions, but it will more than get the job done when you’re caught in an early-fall shower. More importantly, though, is its overall vibe, which promises to gel just as nicely with your weekday derbies and chinos as it will your weekend jeans and clogs. And hey, at just $80 bucks, you’ll still have some scratch left over to pick up a taped-seam rain slicker (maybe even one from Uniqlo!) should you decide your cute lil’ Barbour dupe won’t cut it when the weather forecast wreaks havoc on your plans.
