Grab your coat!

2022-11-06

Grab your coat! Jaeger, once a byword for stylish outerwear, is back on the high street – BRENDA POLAN celebrates its return and speaks to a YOU reader who helped breathe new life back into the brand

Doreen Padder, 85, has an impressive collection of Jeager clothing, including sketches and prototypes
One of her most treasured pieces is a prototype for the burgundy velvet suit worn by Princess Diana in the 1980s
Fiona Lambert, the designer entrusted with rebuilding the brand, is excited to immerse herself in Doreen’s collection from the brand’s golden years

When, back in March, The Mail on Sunday’s business editor Neil Craven wrote a story about how Marks & Spencer is reviving the defunct fashion label Jaeger, one long-term reader, Doreen Padder, was so excited she called to tell him so. He quickly put her in touch with Fiona Lambert, the designer entrusted with rebuilding a brand that was once one of Britain’s most popular. Fiona wasted no time leaping on a train to Haywards Heath in West Sussex to spend a day with Doreen and her vast Jaeger collection. ‘We were both a bit overexcited,’ says Fiona.

Doreen is 85 and still wears the classic label with style. As well as clothes, her Jaeger collection includes sketches and prototypes as her late husband Ray was the brand’s master tailor, overseeing its model room for 30 years during the company’s golden years – the 1960s to the early 90s. ‘He was all about the detail,’ remembers Doreen. ‘He’d always rush to help women with their coats so that he could get a close look at the make. His brain was constantly buzzing with ideas. He even had a workroom in our attic so he could work on designs in his spare time.’

A 1960s magazine ad from Jaeger’s golden years. Designer Fiona Lambert has been entrusted with rebuilding the brand

One of her most treasured pieces is a prototype for the burgundy velvet suit worn by Princess Diana in the 80s. ‘I am lucky in that I can still wear some clothes from those years, but not all of them,’ she says. ‘So I just look after them. They meant so much to Ray.’

Doreen had, of course, noticed Jaeger’s disappearance from the high street and followed the story through to news of its collapse. So she was delighted to learn that Fiona and a 30-plus team were to spearhead the Marks & Spencer rescue.

Fiona, too, is brimming with excitement at being able to immerse herself in the brand’s archive. ‘Jaeger always had this real resonance for me. Everyone I speak to knows it and has a piece in their wardrobe and a real fondness for it. Jaeger was a backbone of the industry, really.’ The current designs (available in 26 M&S stores) are inspired by the golden age of Jaeger, from the perky shift dresses Jean Muir created for the company in the 50s to the classic camel wrap and double-faced, fully reversible coats. ‘I have even introduced a men’s reversible bomber jacket,’ says Fiona.

It’s easy to forget that Jaeger started out on a mission to reform the clothes of both women and men. Dr Gustav Jaeger, a pen pal of Charles Darwin, worked up a theory that human ill health was largely caused by wearing the wrong clothes. Specifically, the wrong fibres. Back in 1884, it was vegetable fibres such as cotton, linen and viscose that he disdained. Instead, he championed animal fibres – primarily wool. His first inventions were passion-killing knitted stockinette all-in-ones which, he maintained, regulated body temperature and wicked away perspiration. They did work. To publicise this ‘system’, Jaeger sponsored Ernest Shackleton’s Antarctic expedition, and his underwear did indeed keep the group warm and comfortable.

Doreen Padder, 85, (right) has an impressive collection of Jeager clothing, including sketches and prototypes. Fiona (left) is excited to immerse herself in Doreen’s collection

The company expanded into clothing fairly quickly, and perhaps its greatest gift to womankind was the overcoat, which replaced cape, cloak and shawl. In its quest for glamorous animal fibres, Jaeger boasted in its early advertising campaigns of shearing or combing not just merino sheep, but cashmere and angora goats, camels, alpacas and vicuñas. As recently as 1984, its PR department borrowed a shaggy Bactrian camel, which posed happily on the pavement outside the brand’s Regent Street store. The coats in the new collection are not quite that exotic. ‘But we have used beautiful wool and cashmere,’ says Fiona, ‘and our linings, in jacquard silk, are as beautiful as the coats’ exteriors.’

The Jaeger coats that get our vote. Left: Green, £275 and Right: Red, £325

Checked, £399, all Jaeger, marksandspencer.com

In fact, she’s also taking inspiration from some of Doreen’s Jaeger silk scarves to design blouses and scarves for next season.

Doreen reports that when she goes to her coffee mornings, there’s a real hum of anticipation as fellow devotees discuss what they’re going to buy from the new range. Yes,’ says Fiona with a smile you could almost describe as smug. ‘We have the large resource of established Jaeger customers, new young customers who have stolen historic pieces from their mothers’ wardrobes, or whose vintage habit has introduced them to the label, and M&S customers looking at the concept of investment dressing in times when money has to be spent wisely.’

Fiona’s daughter, Georgia, 29, has started ‘borrowing’ special pieces. ‘She’s taken my Jaeger leather jacket,’ says Fiona with a shrug. ‘But that’s the thing about Jaeger. You might buy it and love it for years, but then you’ll be proud to pass it on. I think when our customers feel the quality of the fabric, look at the details, such as French seams, and try pieces on, they’ll recognise the amazing value.’

Doreen, in her personal archive overlooking the South Downs, agrees. Jaeger’s closure was a major loss to British womanhood, she says. ‘It is wonderful that it’s back and in good hands. Ray would have been pleased.’

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