A donkey jacket is a medium-length

workwear Workwear is clothing worn for work, especially work that involves manual labour. Often those employed within trade industries elect to be outfitted in workwear because it is built to provide durability and safety. The workwear clothing industr ...

jacket A jacket is a garment for the upper body, usually extending below the hips. A jacket typically has sleeves and fastens in the front or slightly on the side. Jackets without sleeves are vests. A jacket is generally lighter, tighter-fitting, and ...

, typically made of unlined black or dark blue thick Melton

wool Wool is the textile fiber obtained from sheep and other mammals, especially goats, rabbits, and camelids. The term may also refer to inorganic materials, such as mineral wool and glass wool, that have some properties similar to animal w ...

len fabric, with the shoulders back and front reinforced and protected from rain with

leather Leather is a strong, flexible and durable material obtained from the tanning (leather), tanning, or chemical treatment, of animal skins and hides to prevent decay. The most common leathers come from cattle, sheep, goats, equine animals, buffal ...

PVC Polyvinyl chloride (alternatively: poly(vinyl chloride), colloquial: vinyl or polyvinyl; abbreviated: PVC) is the world's third-most widely produced synthetic polymer of plastic (after polyethylene and polypropylene). About 40 million tons o ...

panels. Originating in the United Kingdom, the garment is untailored at the waist such that it hangs down straight from the shoulders. The front vertical edges fall straight and are squared-off at the bottom edge which is also straight horizontally with no vent at the back. In length it reaches below the crotch area. It has no

lapel A lapel ( ) is a folded flap of cloth on the front of a jacket or coat below the collar. It is most commonly found on formal clothing and suit jackets. Usually it is formed by folding over the front edge of the jacket or coat and sewing it to t ...

s and is closed by four to five buttons at the front that fasten tightly up to the neck with a broad and stiff turn-up collar, allowing the wearer to protect the neck from wind, cold and wet weather. It is thus well suited to outdoors work in demanding conditions.

Origins

In 1888 George Key opened up his own shop above his father John Key's first-floor draper shop on Lower Brook Street in Rugeley, Staffordshire, England. That same year, Key designed a new type of coat made of a hard-wearing material developed for those who were working on the construction of the

Manchester Ship Canal The Manchester Ship Canal is a inland waterway in the North West England, North West of England linking Manchester to the Irish Sea. Starting at the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary at Eastham, Merseyside, Eastham, near Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, it ...

. Some of the

navvies Navvy, a clipping of navigator ( UK) or navigational engineer ( US), is particularly applied to describe the manual labourers working on major civil engineering projects and occasionally in North America to refer to mechanical shovels and eart ...

worked on donkey engines (a steam-powered winch or logging engine), providing the inspiration for the name of George Key's new coat: the donkey jacket.

Design

The donkey jacket is derived from the wool sack coat worn by workers in the 19th century, and the ''

Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP), a University of Oxford publishing house. The dictionary, which published its first editio ...

'' references the term as first used in 1929: "one with leather shoulders and back". The jacket usually has two capacious side pockets, and sometimes an inside "poacher's pocket". Later versions replaced the leather with a PVC panel covering the shoulder-blade areas. This could be fluorescent orange or yellow and is sometimes branded with the name of the company which supplied the jacket, or the name of the company for which the wearer worked.

Social significance

The donkey jacket is regarded as typical of the British manual labourer and trade unionist as well as members of the political left. It is also favoured by traditionalist

Teddy boy The Teddy Boys or Teds were a mainly United Kingdom, British youth subculture originating in the early 1950s to mid-1960s and then revived in the 1970s who were interested in rock and roll and Rhythm and blues, R&B music, wearing clothes part ...

s, Rockabillys and

skinhead A skinhead or skin is a member of a subculture that originated among working-class youth in London, England, in the 1960s. It soon spread to other parts of the United Kingdom, with a second working-class skinhead movement emerging worldwide i ...

s. Former British Labour Party leader

Michael Foot Michael Mackintosh Foot (23 July 19133 March 2010) was a British politician who was Leader of the Labour Party (UK), Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition (United Kingdom), Leader of the Opposition from 1980 to 1983. Foot beg ...

was criticised for wearing what was described incorrectly as a "donkey jacket" at a

Remembrance Day Remembrance Day (also known as Poppy Day owing to the tradition of wearing a remembrance poppy) is a memorial day observed in Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth member states since the end of the First World War to honour armed forces me ...

wreath-laying ceremony and he was shown wearing one on several covers of the satirical magazine ''

Private Eye ''Private Eye'' is a British fortnightly satirical and current affairs (news format), current affairs news magazine, founded in 1961. It is published in London and has been edited by Ian Hislop since 1986. The publication is widely recognised ...

''. Foot's office insisted it was actually a "very expensive short overcoat" chosen by his wife, from

Harrods Harrods is a Listed building, Grade II listed luxury department store on Brompton Road in Knightsbridge, London, England. It was designed by C. W. Stephens for Charles Digby Harrod, and opened in 1905; it replaced the first store on the ground ...

References

{{Clothing Jackets British fashion