Coat, mackintosh

Swan & Edgar of Regent Street sold this woman's worsted gabardine mackintosh in around 1918-1920. The coat has a shawl collar and dolman sleeves with a deep cuffs. The lower back is decorated with four horizontal panels of gabardine stitched to the body of the coat.

Most of the coat is cut from a single piece of fabric to reduce the number of seams and make it more waterproof. The ingenious pattern and fashionable styling suggest that it may have been a Paris model bought by Swan & Edgar for reproduction.

Swan & Edgar was one of London's leading department stores. The shop features as Lynn and Sedley in Somerset Maugham's 1915 novel, 'Of Human Bondage'. Maugham's description was based on the experiences of Gilbert Clarke who was a floorman at Swan & Edgar in 1900.