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The jury is still out as to who wore it best: Gregory Peck (or for that matter, David Niven) in The Guns of Navarone, David Bowie in The Man Who Fell to Earth or Trevor Howard in arguably the best British film ever made, The Third Man.
The duffle coat, for all its big-screen hero credentials (heroines, too: Ali MacGraw and Brigitte Bardot smouldered wearing theirs in, respectively, Love Story and The Truth), started life in a small municipality on the outskirts of Antwerp. The town of Duffel in Belgium took its name from the thick, boiled woollen cloth that was used there for making blankets and luggage. The material, with its excellent thermoregulating properties, found its way, via 15th-century Flemish emigrants, to Britain, where an overcoat made from duffel was produced in the 1850s, originally designed by English tailor John Partridge. It bore a resemblance to the Polish 'frock' coat that had first appeared a few decades earlier, its horizontal toggle 'buckle' becoming fashionable for its ease of closing and unfastening.
Hefty, hardwearing and weatherproof, the overcoat (with name Anglicised to 'duffle') seemed the perfect thing for Royal Navy sailors to wrap up in out on 'the cruel sea'-by coincidence, the name of the film in which the garment made its first screen appearance (in 1953), worn by Jack Hawkins. The British Admiralty certainly thought so and commissioned a handful of manufacturers, including The Ideal Clothing Company (now called Original Montgomery) to produce a version for its seafarers.
Denne historien er fra November 13, 2024-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra November 13, 2024-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på

A trip down memory lane
IN contemplating the imminent approach of a rather large and unwanted birthday, I keep reminding myself of the time when birthdays were exciting: those landmark moments of becoming a teenager or an adult, of being allowed to drive, to vote or to buy a drink in a pub.

The lord of masterly rock
Charles Dance, fresh from donning Michelangelo’s smock for the BBC, discusses the role, the value of mentoring and why the Sistine chapel is like playing King Lear

The good, the bad and the ugly
With a passion for arguing and a sharp tongue to match his extraordinary genius, Michelangelo was both the enfant prodige and the enfant 'terribile’ of the Renaissance, as Michael Hall reveals

Ha-ha, tricked you!
Giving the impression of an endless vista, with 18th-century-style grandeur and the ability to keep pesky livestock off the roses, a ha-ha is a hugely desirable feature in any landscape. Just don't fall off

Seafood, spinach and asparagus puff-pastry cloud
Cut one sheet of pastry into a 25cm–30cm (10in–12in) circle. Place it on a parchment- lined baking tray and prick all over with a fork. Cut the remaining sheets of pastry to the same size, then cut inner circles so you are left with rings of about 5cm (2½in) width and three circles.

Small, but mighty
To avoid the mass-market cruise-ship circuit means downsizing and going remote—which is exactly what these new small ships and off-the-beaten track itineraries have in common.

Sharp practice
Pruning roses in winter has become the norm, but why do we do it–and should we? Charles Quest-Ritson explains the reasoning underpinning this horticultural habit

Flour power
LONDON LIFE contributors and friends of the magazine reveal where to find the capital's best baked goods

Still rollin' along
John Niven cruises in the wake of Mark Twain up the great Mississippi river of the American South

The legacy Charles Cruft and Crufts
ACKNOWLEDGED as the ‘prince of showmen’ by the late-19th-century world of dog fanciers and, later, as ‘the Napoleon of dog shows’, Charles Cruft (1852–1938) had a phenomenal capacity for hard graft and, importantly, a mind for marketing—he understood consumer behaviour and he knew how to weaponise ‘the hype’.