Alpha Industries has continued to manufactured many old school military clothing items. This time it’s the M1951 ‘Fishtail’ parka. While you seem to find these all over the UK thanks to their adoption by the Mod culture in the 1960s, you rarely see them in the US. They are great oversized parka shells and can be worn to protect or conceal what’s underneath.

From Alpha Industries:
The Army “Fishtail” Parka was part of a layering clothing system for cold, wet weather. The parka was named “Fishtail” because the back had a split skirt tail the resembled a fish. The skirt could be snapped into the parka when not needed but in wet weather the two parts would be wrapped around the soldier’s legs to provide additional protection from rain and snow when the solder sat or marched. The parka pictured here is the 1965 model, but it was first developed in 1951.
(Unfortunately, whoever put this together didn’t realize that they have the button in frieze liner wrong side out)

A commercial model is available exclusively through Urban Outfitters. (Never thought I’d be mentioning them on here). Heads up, it does not include the liner and uses an orange zipper rather than the original brass zipper and incorporates oversized drawstring keepers.

Tags: Alpha Industries

This entry was posted on Friday, September 27th, 2013 at 00:05 and is filed under Clothing, Off-Duty. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.