Streetwear: As Taiga Saejima

Versus Taiga Saejima 

 

 

 Alpha Industries snorkel parka.

On the left is the real thing, naturally.

More on the N-3B parka, from that wikipedia entry:

The original snorkel parka (USAF N-3B parka, which is 3/4 length and has a full, attached hood; the similar N-2B parka is waist-length and has an attached split hood) was developed in the United States during the early 1950s for military use, mainly for flight crews stationed in extremely cold areas. It was designed for use in areas with temperatures as low as −60 °F (−51 °C). Originally made with a sage green DuPont flight silk nylon outer and lining it was padded with a wool blanket type material until the mid-1970s when the padding was changed to polyester wadding making the jacket both lighter and warmer. The outer shell material also was changed to a sage green cotton-nylon blend, with respective percentages 80–20, 65–35, and 50–50 being used at various times.

It gained the common name of "snorkel parka" because the hood can be zipped right up leaving only a small tunnel (or snorkel) for the wearer to look out of. This is particularly effective in very cold, windy weather although it has the added liabilities of seriously limiting the field of vision and hearing. Earlier Vietnam-era hoods had genuine fur ruffs; later versions used synthetic furs. Original manufacturers of this parka for the government included Skyline, Southern Athletic, Lancer, Greenbrier, Workroom For Designers, Alpha, and Avirex.

The basic N-3B parka design was copied and sold to the civilian market by many manufacturers with varying degrees of quality and faithfulness to the original government specifications. Surplus military parkas are often available for relatively low prices online and in surplus stores; they compare quite favorably with civilian extreme-cold parkas of all types due to their robust construction, designed for combat conditions, and warmth.

The 1970s–1980s civilian version of the parka was made in many colors – navy blue, green, brown, black, maroon, grey, royal blue, sky blue and bright orange. Most had an orange diamond quilted nylon lining, although a very small number did have alternative colored linings such as yellow, pale blue, and green. While still manufacturing parkas to the military standard, Alpha Industries have more recently adopted the orange lining and a slimmer fit when producing their VF59 model parka which is now more popular than the military version.

In the late 1980s the snorkel parka came to be associated in the UK with trainspotters, who would supposedly wear them, giving birth to the slang term there anorak.

In Europe the snorkel parka started to regain popularity in the late 1990s and early 2000s.