Women's Military Jackets Are Trending. Are You Answering Fashion's Call to Action?

“I’m tired of living through historical events” has become a popular internet catchphrase. It certainly captures the feeling of being sentient in 2025 (see: more tariffs, fewer human rights, global political leaders squaring off in a will-they-won’t-they World War III). Tensions are high. The future is uncertain. Every day can feel like you're bracing for battle—metaphorical for some, literal for others.

Fashion is responding in the best way it knows how: by making women's military jackets the archival silhouette revival of the moment.

Recognizable by a cropped silhouette, braided rope embroidery, and frog toggles across the chest, decorative military jackets originated with Hungarian cavalry, known as the Hussar, and later became a status symbol across European armies in the Napoleonic era. Now, as if united by a battle cry (“Do you hear the people sing? Singing the song of angry men?”), fashion designers are proposing that the 350-year-old jacket become part of modern women’s uniform.

A battalion of red, white, and navy women's military jackets stormed McQueen and Ann Demeulemeester’s Spring 2026 runways. At Vaquera, there was an acid-washed denim jacket featuring rows of brass buttons and loops across the chest.

Over the summer, the style popped up in Jonathan Anderson’s debut collection for Dior Men. Not long after, Jenna Ortega wore a custom vest version to his first womenswear show at Paris Fashion Week, styled by Enrique Melendez. A week later, new Dior brand ambassador Greta Lee appeared on the cover of Vogue in one of the seafoam military jackets.

Naturally, fashion Twitter (a.k.a. X) is already engaged in the military jacket trend discourse, resurfacing past instances of cultural fixtures embracing the style, such as Michael Jackson and My Chemical Romance’s indie sleaze rock anthem, “Welcome to the Black Parade.” Dr. Serena Dyer, a fashion historian, author, and curator, notes that its origins go back further, "first adopted into mainstream fashion by 60s counter-culture icons,” like The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, and Mick Jagger.

Today’s take on the military jacket is much more than just recycled nostalgia, explains Summer Anne Lee, a fashion historian and adjunct instructor at the Fashion Institute of Technology. “When contemporary designers reinterpret the look of the Hussar jacket into their work, it's just as likely that they are referencing cultural icons as they are referencing an actual military uniform," she says. "In 2025, against a backdrop of political unease, war, and resurgent nationalism, these jackets can be read as an ongoing dialogue about authority and power."

McQueen’s Spring 2026 collection is perhaps the most explicit nod to the incendiary vibe of our times. Creative director Sean McGirr cited Robin Hardy’s 1973 The Wicker Man, a horror classic about the conflict between faith and power, as a reference in his show notes. He wrote of "a febrile charge in the air" and "a site of simmering tensions” as driving his latest designs for the brand: "What happens when we give way, satisfying our deep-seated desires and innate impulses? What does it take to stir and submit to that primal drive?”

An ivory brocade military jacket worn unfastened, with a white criss-crossing bikini peeking through, and paired with distressed low-rise jeans, feels like an answer.

The military jacket most recently bubbled back up in the late aughts and early 2010s, as a foundational staple of the indie sleaze aesthetic. Christophe Decarnin's Spring 2009 collection for Balmain is largely to credit for connecting the martial outerwear with the grunge-y mood, with its puff-shoulder military jackets covered in crystal-embellished frogging. So are It girls like Beyoncé and Rihanna, who brought these styles out of the fashion bubble and into the public eye.

The context of today’s societal and political landscape, though, is too loud to ignore.

“The military jacket's 2025 resurgence reflects our collective need for sartorial armor that offers a sense of control in uncertain times," Dyer says.

History, while not necessarily repeating itself, feels awfully close to rhyming. A fashion trend that reminds us of our ability to fight and individual power is an important, necessary one.

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