Post-1945
Trench coats have remained fashionable in the decades following World War II. Their original role as part of an army officer's uniform lent the trench coat a businesslike respectability, whilst fictional heroes as diverse as the Tenth Doctor, Eleventh Doctor, Captain Jack Harkness, Captain Mal Reynolds, Castiel, Columbo, Dick Tracy, Mike Hammer, the Crow, the Phantom, Humphrey Bogart's Rick Blaine from Casablanca, and Peter Sellers' Inspector Clouseau kept the coat in the public eye. Usually, a fedora or an ushanka (during colder weather) was also worn. In the 1960s, some Mods wore trench coats as fashionable overcoats, as an alternative to the fishtail parka or crombie.
The heavy metal and Goth fashion trend of black oilcloth dusters are usually referred to as trench coats. Early media reports of the Columbine High School massacre initially associated the perpetrators (Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold) with members of the "Trenchcoat Mafia," a group of outcasts who allegedly wore conspicuous black Australian oilcloth dusters. In the copycat W. R. Myers High School shooting days later, it was rumored the shooter had worn a trench coat. In the wake of these incidents, many public schools nationwide forbade students from wearing trench coats, on the grounds that the long coats could be used to conceal weapons.
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