A colourful short tartan or plaid jacket with a wool lining and a thick woollen collar and front pockets to keep your hands in. These American style jackets had the look! You may be only going to school or work but this rugged looking jacket made you feel it as if you were about to cut down trees in the great outdoors, not just go to lessons.
Lumber jackets were big in the 1970s with guys who wanted to look manly and keep warm, so were great for school kids too. Mid seventies, lumber jackets were very popular and had a bad boy image, similar to the hoodies of today.
The jacket itself was inspired by American lumberjacks but could also be seen in films of the era. Very much a working mans jacket, the guy wearing a lumber jacket on screen was probably working in the docks, some sort of criminal, or a doomed rebel with attitude.
However, these were great warm jackets with a cool image. And in the cold winters of the early 70s, they were a fashionable alternative to a coat.
You could put your hands in the fur lined front pockets and turn up the wool collar, and with the addition of a cigarette, you could feel like some kind of American anti-hero. Strange that these jackets with their original image of the American great outdoors became so fashionable in the playgrounds and high streets of Britain.
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