The Chore Coat: A Short History and What to Look For

A chore coat is a plain cotton work jacket with roomy front pockets, first made for factory and farm work. There are two main lines: the French blue work jacket, the bleu de travail, and the American coat, best known from Carhartt in brown duck canvas.

The French side

The jacket goes back to France in the 1800s, when industry there was growing fast. Early ones were made in hard-wearing cotton drill or moleskin, which is a cotton cloth despite the name. Most were blue. That's where the name comes from: bleu de travail, work blue.

Some of the old French makers are still around. Le Mont Saint Michel says it has made its work jacket since 1913, for farm workers and artisans in Brittany and Normandy, though its own history notes that some archives from the time say 1906. Vetra was started in Paris in 1927 by Edouard Beerens, and the name is short for vêtements de travail, work clothes.

When the jacket went from tailor-made to factory-made is less clear. Some sources say mass production had started by the early 1910s, others point to the 1920s, so we'd call it somewhere in that stretch.

The Carhartt side

The Carhartt coat traces back to 1917, the date of the first known ad for a Carhartt coat with the main features of today's chore coat. Early on it was called the Engineer Sack Coat.

By the mid-1920s it came in several fabrics, denim and herringbone twill among them. Carhartt's brown duck came to the coat in 1928, and the corduroy collar most people picture was there by 1939. A blanket-lined version followed, but the date varies by source, anywhere from the 1930s to 1949.

Two later changes are useful if you're trying to place an old one. In 1954 Carhartt added a bi-swing back, extra room behind the shoulders so you can reach without the coat pulling. And in the mid-1950s the pockets were redesigned, around the time wristwatches replaced pocket watches.

The name came last. It was only in 1994 that the coat officially became the Chore Coat.

How to tell the era

• Details give you a floor, not a date. A Carhartt coat with a bi-swing back is from 1954 or later. A corduroy collar alone doesn't tell you much, since it's been on the coat since the 1930s.
• Read the labels. A Sanforized tag means 1930 or later (more in what Sanforized means). A Union Made label says more about where it was made than when (see Union Made labels).
• Think in decades. Sources disagree on a lot of exact years, as you can see above. If a seller gives you one exact year for an old chore coat, ask how they know.

How to measure one

Lay it flat and buttoned. Measure pit to pit (armpit seam to armpit seam), length from the back of the collar to the hem, and sleeve from the shoulder seam to the cuff. Then do the same with a jacket you already own that fits, and compare. That beats the size on the tag.

Archive Workwear sells vintage workwear, outdoor, ivy, military and true vintage from Denver, Colorado. See jackets and French workwear, or follow new finds on Instagram at @archiveworkwear.