What’s more Aquascutum’s decision to hand over the reins of the new collection to little-known designers makes it impossible not

What’s more, Aquascutum’s decision to hand over the reins of the new collection to little-known designers makes it impossible not to draw parallels – Burberry’s success is, in part, due to its creative director Christopher Bailey, who was also an almost entirely unknown entity when he took the helm. Unless Aquascutum does what it’s doing now with this collection, it won’t get to be that age.”Still, given the fact that Burberry and Aquascutum share a not dissimilar heritage (both kitted out officers in the war, both clothed explorers and both claim to have invented waterproof clothing), such comparisons are unavoidable. “Aquascutum is so proud of its heritage and of being 150 years old, but it also wants to be 300 years old. However, according to Herz, a certain pragmatism lies at the heart of Aquascutum’s desire to reposition itself “It’s no longer enough to supply garments that cover you up. And if you are going to be in the fashion business, you have to move with the times,” he points out. “That way I can include something real in my collection and by doing this make basic clothing that displays a high level of craftsmanship.”Prestigious collaborations aside, Aquascutum could be forgiven for setting its sights on “doing a Burberry” (after its own f reinvention, the formerly deeply conservative clothing label is now the UK’s most internationally successful designer brand).

In addition to customising a couple of women’s red Aquascutum trenches exclusively for the 10 Corso Como Comme des Garcons boutique in Tokyo and deconstructing a handful of Aquascutum trenches to coincide with the London store re-launch, Watanabe is also working together with the brand on an offering for his namesake collection for winter 2005/6.”One of the points of my menswear line is to collaborate with companies with history, that have concentrated on one thing for years and have perfected their skill,” explains Watanabe, whose decision to work with Aquascutum speaks volumes about its competitors. “The thought process is quite Margiela, a weenie bit early Helmut Lang but it somehow ends up feeling quite Lanvin. They’ve really looked at Aquascutum’s heritage and not just plucked an idea out of the blue.”The collection is the culmination of the brand’s recent attempts to reposition itself. This began last year with the sparkling new shop fit of its 100- year-old flagship London store at 100 Regent Street and a collaboration with the Comme des Garcons designer, Junya Watanabe. Whether that’s the effortlessness of a men’s coat worn over a dress crafted out of a cloud-like confection of tulle; the modernity of a men’s vest worn under a plunging lace flapper dress; the discreet elegance of a shrunken- proportioned, inside-out cashmere and acetate jacket paired with mannish slacks; or the dandyish appeal of a man wearing a sweatshirt with a pleat in the back and tailored Japanese selvedge denims.”They’ve totally deconstructed things and re-worked them in quite a Martin Margiela way but more glamorous,” drawls Aquascutum’s catwalk show stylist, Nancy Rohde, grasping to define the collection’s sophisticated aesthetic. The Nelson has been turned into an oversized mannish jacket for women and shrunk down to a short coat for men. They morphed the Kingsgate trench into a paired-down dress coat for women and reduced it to a skinny-fit mac for men.The upshot? Clothes for men and women that are inextricably linked and, at the same time, work in dramatic contrast with one another.

But all of that looks set to change thanks to the new 200-piece Aquascutum collection.Having identified a means of creating a modern reversion of Aquascutum’s heritage, Herz, 37, and Fidler, 31, set about performing the same deconstructive process with the brand’s core traditional men’s coats: the Filey (the basic raincoat), the Nelson (a wool coat) and the Kingsgate (the classic trench).”We realised,” Fidler says, “that we had a wealth of details within the craftsmanship of the garments that could be taken apart and used in other ways.” So they increased the volume of the Filey to near bustle proportions for women, and shrunk it into a blouson-style jacket f for men. By contrast, in the 1980s, the label’s tailored suiting was adopted by Margaret Thatcher as her (very serious) battle dress of choice.In spite of its exquisitely tailored suits, and hand-finished separates, the understated nature of the brand’s rather conventional Aquascutum London mainline range has meant it has never really made its mark on fashion since the power-dressed decade. During the 1970s, Aquascutum’s classic trenchcoat became synonymous with Inspector Clouseau – Peter Sellers’ buffoonish character wore it in all the Pink Panther films. Founded by the gentlemen’s tailor John Emary in 1851 (who perfected the technique of waterproofing wool fabrics and re-named his company in 1853, joining together the Latin words for “water” and “shield”), the label supplied officers in the Crimean and First World Wars with rain-repellent trench coats and equipped Sir Edmund Hillary and his Sherpa guide Tensing Norgay with their waterproof togs when they climbed Everest. “Suddenly it was something that was really fresh but was still Aquascutum.”You see, for the past ooh, at least two decades, the 150-year-old British purveyor of ultra-conservative outerwear has languished pretty much off fashion’s radar.

He and Fidler, head of menswear, found that by unpicking the very fabric of the brand’s foundations – namely its outerwear garments – they’d inadvertently hit upon a template for reworking the company’s heritage for today. We took a quite uninspiring size 40 men’s coat, and put it on a girl. We then shortened the sleeves, chopped the bottom off the coat, left the pockets where they were, re-jigged the proportions and suddenly loved it,” explains Herz, Aquascutum’s head of design. But what of the clothes?”The very first piece we made was a garment that had been in the Aquascutum London menswear collection for ever. It includes the show producers behind Alexander McQueen’s theatrical catwalk spectaculars, Gainsbury & Whiting; the casting supremo Russell Marsh (who casts both Prada and Miu Miu’s runway shows and campaigns); and Nancy Rohde, show stylist for the Belgian designer Dries van Noten. To ensure their show on Tuesday oozes the type of kudos the label hopes soon to have accrued for itself, the designers have hired a crack catwalk team that is positively bristling with credentials. In launching a new fashion-forward, press-worthy men’s and women’s collection, called simply Aquascutum (and not to be confused with the label’s rather staid existing mainline collection, Aquascutum London), they hope to reposition the entire brand.