Why well-worn fashion – such as the Barbour jacket – is having a moment with Gen Z and millennials alike

Although it took until October, fall has finally arrived in New York City – and the finance set has broken out their Barbour jackets.

Nowadays, it’s a very specific signifier of belonging to a certain class – worn by folks for whom work almost never involves exposure to bad weather. A classic coastal shibboleth, the older a Barbour appears, the more powerful a signifier it is. A rough square of mending stitches tells the tale of a long-forgotten Christmas tree incident, and faded spots on the shoulders are hallmarks of the backpack years in college. But only the wearer really knows its whole story.

A Barbour jacket doesn’t look attractive, exactly. It looks like it does a job, and well. If you have one, there’s a strong chance your mother bought it for you, and you have been wearing it for decades. The Barbour’s oversized brass zips never seem to snag, the soft tartan lining is warm but rarely too hot, and the collar never seems to sit exactly the right way, giving it a rakish look. If you need one with longer sleeves, Barbour will just add some extra inches of cotton, a practice I wish just about every other brand would adopt.

“One of the unique things about our brand is that we always hear the stories that come with the garments,” says Paul Stephan, Barbour’s vice-president of marketing for North America. “‘This was bought for me by my parents or handed down for me by my grandparents.’ We’ve heard stories of a jacket that’s lasted 40, 50 years.”

Here’s the secret: people can keep their Barbours for decades because you can get them rewaxed, which, like waxing your car or polishing your shoe, boosts its water resistance, nurtures the underlying material, and protects its surface from wear and tear.

You used to only be able to mail your coat in for service, or bring it to a Barbour or Orvis store. But now you can drop it off at a wide array of retail locations, including Nordstrom, and get it shipped back to you in about four weeks, a faster turnaround time than a few years ago. You can also take it to the Barbour boutique located in Washington’s Georgetown neighborhood or on New York’s Upper East Side and watch it be waxed before your eyes. (The store clerk will put it on a heating table and spread hot wax on it with a sponge. It takes about 15 minutes total and is uncannily soothing to witness.)

This little secret is becoming more widely known as shoppers become more attracted to items with real patina – the signs of use and love. Over the summer, GQ published an article about how Gen Z shoppers are snatching up weathered LL Bean Boat and Totes for hundreds of dollars.