Barbour’s Most Beloved Jacket Gets a Vintage Military Upgrade

Kaptain Sunshine, an elevated Japanese clothing brand, redesigned Barbour’s most famous jacket with inspiration from a 1950s US military parka.

Messing with a jacket as universally acclaimed as the Bedale is dangerous, but this collaboration stuck the landing.

Barbour

The Bedale Casual Field Coat stretches the old English barn jacket to the dimensions of a vintage US Army fishtail parka, and layers on details like double chest pockets, a waist cinch and snap side vents.

The standout addition is the detachable felted wool hood. It is a uniform navy blue on one model, but a bold contrasting color on the other two.

Barbour

This retro-reimagined Bedale comes in the olive drab and dark navy typical of Barbour’s core jackets, along with a light khaki color. The green is accented with a bold yellow, and the khaki with a burnt orange.

Improving perfection

Kaptain Sunshine introduced this design in 2020 during its first capsule with Barbour, but it was regular cotton. The 2025 version has been upgraded with Barbour’s signature dry waxed cotton.

It retained everything we love about the Bedale — a dry waxed cotton shell, a corduroy-lined collar with a throat latch and a snap placket over the front zipper.

Barbour

The luxury Japanese brand improved up on the well-established design by swapping the hand-warmer pockets for inset flap pockets and nearly doubling the size of the bellows pockets.

On top of that, a set of side-entry pockets is now included under the bellows pockets.

The standard corduroy lining of the collar extends down the inner side of the placket on this Bedale parka.

Barbour

With the extended length, the double-vented back — a feature originally intended for riding horses — is shifted to elongated side vents with snaps.

The feature that drives home the military parka inspiration is the rope waist cinch, a telltale feature of the Cold War-era outerwear.

Waxed cotton gone mod

The best Japanese designers are masters at reinterpreting historical American and European clothing and breathing new life into it. Although the M-51 parka was invented by and issued to the U.S. military, it has much stronger cultural ties to England.

Barbour

The M-51, commonly known as a fishtail parka, was introduced by the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War. It entered popular fashion a decade later, when British mods adopted it during the mid-1960s.

From a fashion perspective, the fishtail parka is as English as the Barbour Bedale, although both jackets are universally beloved, especially in Japan.

Barbour

The Bedale Casual Field Coat is one of the most interesting iterations of any Barbour waxed jacket in years. It was created by a Japanese brand inspired by an American jacket because all the best men’s Barbour jackets are collaborations.

Availability and price

The Barbour x Kaptain Sunshine Oversized Bedale Casual Field Coat is available now from Barbour for $499.

The navy blue and green models are also available from End.

Barbour

Barbour x Kaptain Sunshine Oversized Bedale Casual Field Coat

• $499 at Barbour
• $499 at End (Navy)
• $499 at End (Olive)

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