Arsène Wenger's coat has also become haute couture

There is no way to remember Arsène Wenger without thinking of his iconic, long, padded coat that almost touched the grass of the Emirates Stadium and Highbury before that, where the fine English rain would fall. Beneath the coat, the formal shoes could be seen shyly peeking out, while the half-open zipper revealed the usual white shirt paired with a V-neck sweater and red tie, the red of the Gunners. For Wenger, perhaps, that piece of clothing was also a way to blend in with the players he coached, who wore the same Nike Storm Fit to stay warm after being substituted and ready to sit on the bench.

Le Professeur didn’t seem like someone who cared about having style on the field, yet, unknowingly, he started a trend that, with a hint of irony and boldness in this statement, can be said to have made it onto the runways of fashion weeks, particularly the FW25 that took place in Paris in the first week of March. Balenciaga, Yohji Yamamoto, KidSuper, Issey Miyake and many others presented at least one long coat similar to the one Wenger wore over twenty years ago. It's amusing to think that while Wenger was giving tactical instructions to Theo Walcott, Andrey Arshavin, Robin Van Persie and Cesc Fabregas, he had no idea he was about to set a trend. He might be the first (and only) coach who can be said to have launched the oversized style: all this, without giving up his formal suit, which was hidden under a simple yet unique Nike item.

The reason why such a simple and yet impactful item became so famous is not only due to its iconicity; there’s also a sense of nostalgia surrounding Arsène Wenger’s coat, especially since, nowadays, apart from a few rare exceptions like Pep Guardiola in Stone Island and Rick Owens and Scott Parker in Thom Browne, there has been a total flattening of coaches' style. We had talked about Pioli-core in this article, focusing mainly on the names of Roberto De Zerbi, Eusebio Di Francesco, Alessio Dionisi, Italian coaches who favor a practically pre-made style: blazers, t-shirts, and white sneakers. Wenger's coat has a double meaning: a denotative one, referring to the general use of the suit, and a connotative one, defined by its urban legend. In fact, it is the latter aspect that still makes the coat a protagonist of the collective imagination more than two decades after its appearance on the pitch. It is one of the symbols of the grassroots football, softening or almost obscuring the formality of a suit with an object that is the exact opposite. A revolutionary gesture, much mistreated when timeless heritage of football and fashion.

The impact of internet culture on Wenger's coat

Without the communicative and transformative power of the internet and social networks, today we would be talking about an item like any other; it would have been hard to consider Arsène Wenger as a fashion icon, a role that back then was reserved only for the cigarette of Ancelotti or the cigar of Lippi. Starting from the 2004/05 season, right after the Invincibles era, the smoking ban on the benches came into effect, so the focus shifted to coaches' clothing. Arsène Wenger had already said goodbye to smoking, looking back on his time as a smoker with not much joy, as he told The Guardian: “As a young man, I worked in a pub where you couldn't see from the door to the window because of the smoke, and I spent my youth selling cigarettes”.

That said, internet culture played a huge role in the rise of Arsène Wenger's popularity and his coat, especially thanks to a meme that went viral in 2024: an audio that repeats “Good evening in North London, Arsène Wenger puts his coat on”, accompanied by a video in which a boy or girl wears a long coat similar to Arsène Wenger’s, of course black, with the text “My girlfriend dressed like she is about to go 49 games unbeaten and sub on prime Walcott”. A meme that sums up the disbelief of boyfriends seeing their partners wear a jacket that, before Wenger wore it continuously, could only be seen in the popular grassroots football circuits. A jacket that fashion has taken over, reinterpreting it as it pleased and giving it a new meaning.

All the overcoats at Paris Fashion Week

Alongside Balenciaga, Yohji Yamamoto, KidSuper, and Issey Miyake, overcoats were presented on the runway by brands such as Andreas Kronthaler, Christian Wijnants, Emporio Armani, Lacoste, Brandon Maxwell, Mame Kurogouchi and K-Way. Many of these also opted for brighter colors, but most importantly, not all went as low as the "Wenger height" for the coat.

To demonstrate just how essential yet extreme Arsène Wenger's overcoat was, it’s worth noting that the last show Balenciaga did with Demna "in person" was the brand that pushed the boundaries the furthest with this item, making it in a total black version with truly oversized volumes that practically touched the ground. As if the Georgian designer wanted to close his decade-long journey with Balenciaga in style, with this long padded black coat symbolizing a definitive closure with the brand and the beginning of a new chapter – just days after Demna's official appointment as the creative director of Gucci. Although Balenciaga was the most predictable brand to create this item, given the strong influence of the slav aesthetic, it’s not a coincidence that the oversized coat was the final look presented at the end of the show, as if it were an item ready to serve as a reset, ready to show us where fashion could go, favoring pieces that cover up any frills, just as Wenger did, rejecting, in fact, all the symbolism tied to the red tie, red Arsenal.