Untamed Lion: June 2013

I have been trying to find a very plain, hopefully bit longer/almost knee-length parka. The most obvious choice is a fishtail one. Don't know the difference quite yet between m65 and m51. Maybe the m65 has a removable hood while the 51 is attached or folds down, I could be wrong though. These photos from ebay are an original listing I saw and missed, all up the coat went for $30 and i got sore about it and've gone on this stupid hunt/quest. I still think longer jackets are a bit dumb in the climate of a place like Brisbane, but I like the idea of how cloaking and blankety the are. some kind of notion of being snug and protected.

All those Japanese brands like Visvim/Nonnative/White Mountaineering seem to have made fairly nice versions teched up to the max and really expensive. While these jackets are nice, I prefer the idea of something built for more practical applications and I'm broke and want something I can spill beer/sauce on/fall over in and not care. I could probably rationalise that more as wanting to build some wabi sabi crap and sew it up with patches.

The Air Force APECS Multicam Parka by Alpha Industries is kind of along those lines, except it looks hip/thigh length.They also have the NYCO ECWS which is pretty similar and comes in a nice sagey green.Most of Alpha's stuff looks pretty gammon. They mostly make flight jackets which look okay, but yeah nothing along the lines of what I'm looking for. Alpha is an obvious choice, but as a more civilian/apparently 'style'-oriented brand of clothing over a brand like Propper, they offer about the same thing. I guess there're also brands like Real McCoys etc, but again they're way above my price range.

On ebay there are a lot of options, the m65 seems cheaper and more available than the m51, I guess due to their respective ages (production numbers, rarity bla bla). There isn't really a new interpretation made for the military. They seem to just have shorter length softshells and longer ones and they're all packed with a million pockets on the outside/in more of a BDU or SAS smock style. Kind of like those Alpha numbers linked above.

My first interest in a jacket like this is via the USN deck coat, a nice change from the N1 that is pretty commonplace, despite being 'real rare' n shit. Maybe Paul Newman bought all the ones in existence? This jacket is nice, it's actually basically the same, but with a hood and a longer length. According to the information I've found, it's from the same era, but I can't verify/didn't care THAT much. They do seem harder to come across, though.