Amazon Coat

Submission 2,735

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About

The Amazon Coat is a colloquial name for Orolay Women's Thickened Down Jacket, a parka that went viral in 2018. Dubbed the Amazon Coat due to its low-cost on the online shopping retailer Amazon.com, particularly in comparison to other popular parkas made by brands like Canadian Goose.

Online History

The earliest known mention of the jacket was posted on the website PopSugar^[1] in the article "We Are Obsessed With These 18 Chic Fall Coats -- All on Sale" (shown below).

On March 27th, 2018, New York^[2] magazine published an article about the popularity on the jacket entitled "The Unlikely Tale of a $140 Amazon Coat That’s Taken Over the Upper East Side." In their attempt to find its origin, they wrote:

But in case it seemed like Cayli Cavaco was the first to wear the coat: Lauren Epstein, a Chinatown-based stylist, heard about it from her friend who lives on the Upper East Side -- who says she first saw it on her daughter’s preschool teacher at the 92nd Street Y. The teacher at the 92nd Street Y, Jessica Reich, found it on a travel blog she liked, The Blonde Abroad, while planning for a trip to Iceland in 2016. So maybe Reich got the ball rolling. But who can say, really.

Reception

On November 8th, 2019, Oprah Winfrey^[3] included the jacket on her Favorite things. Listed at #16, the jacket is described, "This jacket has become a major viral sensation, and it looks like even Oprah is a major fan! The warm coat has over 4,000 rave reviews on Amazon."

About a week later, the New York Times^[4] published an article about the jacket's viral success, and how it's supposed irrelevance a year later. They wrote, "In 2019, though, the coat seemed smaller, sadder and definitely dirtier, slumped in the corner of my closet. What happens when the moment for such a specific product passes? Who will be wearing the coat for another year, and who will be sending it to the great clothing bin in the sky?"

Slate^[5] called the jacket "fast fashion." They said:

Maybe we had agreed as a group that something affordable and practical and even a little ugly was worth coveting! But when the package arrived, I discovered that the proportions of the coat were off: The body was wide and bulky, the arms T-Rex-y in comparison. Within five minutes of puzzling at myself in the mirror, one of the many zippers got stuck. It did not look good. It did not work well.

Jezebel^[6] refuted the criticism. They wrote, "Debating the merits of a perfectly functional winter coat based purely on the fact that it became a meme is the precise sort of trend piece that is gold for the Times but makes little to no sense for anyone who thinks practically about anything. If you own this jacket and like it, then wear it until the stuffing falls out."

Fandom

On January 11th, 2019, the Instagram ^[7]account @theamazoncoat posted its first photograph. The account features people wearing the jacket, exclusively (examples below).