Where to Buy a Hubertus Coat Now

Schneiders of Salzburg spent seventy-odd years making the coat most Americans picture when they picture an Austrian loden coat. In May 2023 it filed for insolvency and was wound up inside three weeks, and a good part of the Hubertus trade went with it. If you have been looking since and finding it oddly hard, that's partly why. The other reasons might be uncertainty on the part of importers what tariffs they'll be expected to pay, or the drastic production cost increases in Europe over the post-pandemic years.

But Schneiders of Salzburg wasn't the only supplier of a Hubertus Loden Coats and we've kept producing our own version with our supplier, Steinbock of Innsbruck.

What we have

Three, all cut on the same traditional pattern.

The Tirol is the unlined one and the closest to the original hunting coat: full-length back pleat, slits under the arms, pockets that pass through to your trouser pocket, leather buttons, and a chin strap that buttons on when the weather turns serious.

The Süd Tiroler takes the same pattern and adds a plaid lining that zips out, in green, navy and camel. It covers more of the year than the Tirol does, at the cost of the underarm vents, which a coat built for maximum warmth and with a removable lining doesn't accommodate.

The Richard is the Süd Tiroler in cashmere, in charcoal melange.

All three come short, regular and long in the common sizes, with a fuller cut in some for layering a jacket and a sweater at once. They ship to you from the United States, (South Carolina) which means no customs paperwork, no three-week wait and no arguing with a European returns desk if the length is wrong. Tell us your height and your jacket size and we will tell you which one to order, a conversation worth having before you buy rather than after.

Where else the coat comes from

If you find yourself in the region and have space in your suitcase, one of these will serve you well too. I would rather the coat stayed in production than have every sale.

Loden Plankl, Vienna. Opposite the Hofburg, trading since the eighteenth century, and the name Austrians give you when you ask. They will make to measure. If you are going to be in Vienna anyway, go, and say hi from me to the current owner, a wonderful lady named Sigrid.

Lodenfrey, Munich. The house that invented Strichloden in 1872, the water-repellent loden with its nap raised by dried thistle heads.

Eduard Meier, Munich. Better known for shoes, but they keep good loden coats.

Cordings, London. Sells a Hubertus to the British market. Their description calls the cloth felted, which it is not; loden is fulled, and the difference is the whole reason the cloth works. Good coat anyway.

Vintage. Genuinely a real option with this coat, more than with almost anything else you could buy. A 1960s loden that someone looked after is often better cloth than you can get new, because the old mountain-sheep loden was heavier than most of what is woven today, but it might be scratchy. Flea markets in Austria and southern Germany, and the better resellers online. Check the shoulders and the pocket bags; the cloth will have outlived everything else on the coat.

What to check, wherever you buy

Plenty of things get sold as a Hubertus that are a green wool coat with a pleat in the back.

• Is it actually loden? Woven first and then fulled, not matted from loose fiber, and not a wool blend with a loden-ish finish sprayed on. Ask who wove it. A seller who cannot name the mill does not know.
• Underarm vents, or a removable lining. You get one or the other, not both. Buy for the season you actually need. A coat with neither is the one to walk away from.
• Can you reach your pockets? On the real thing you can reach your trouser pocket without opening the coat in the rain.
• Lining, or honestly none. Unlined or part-lined is traditional and is not a corner cut. A full polyester lining in an expensive loden coat is the worse sign. Viscose or Rayon makes a good lining material.
• More than one length per chest size. This is an investment piece that will last 30 years so you want a proper fit. Good size selection is sign of customer obsession.

The long version of why each feature exists is here.

The Schneiders closure was reported by FashionUnited. The best general account of loden in English is Bernhard Roetzel's piece for Permanent Style, which is where a good many people first meet the word Hubertus.