Definitive : Navy Jackets: The <i> Peas de Resistance</i>

The hellcats of fashion just won’t stop raiding the Navy sea bag for ideas. Now, as winter ’92 approaches, civilians of both sexes are buttoning up that short double-breasted wool melton overcoat known as a pea jacket.

Some sport luxurious (and expensive) designer versions by the likes of Ralph Lauren or DKNY; others don the real (and realistically priced) thing from a thrift or surplus store. Whichever, this is one garment that won’t leave you out in the cold when it comes to style.

Peas and Qs: So how did it get that name? Despite the way it’s spelled, this is not something you’d see on the Jolly Green Giant.

Still, its origins are obscure, says the U.S. Navy, which advances a couple of theories as to the etymology.

One: The coats were once tailored from a coarse napped wool twill known as pilot cloth, sometimes called “p-cloth,” and therefore the garment made from it a “p-jacket.” This later became a pea jacket, a term, says the Navy, “that we find in use from 1723 on.”

Two, it could be that the name “derived from an Old Dutch word variously spelled py , pie or pii and applied in the 1400s to a coarse, thick, stout woolen cloth or felt and the garment made from it.” The 1400s? That, old salt, is true timelessness.

The poop: Buy American military, and you’ll get a coat of 22-ounce wool melton in a color known as Blue 3346; the sleeves and yoke will be lined with a napped-back satin material, and the front will fasten with a four-hole melamine button impressed with an anchor.

Decked out: Yves Saint Laurent hoisted the pea coat to haute couture with the memorable collection that opened his couture house in 1962. There have been others, perhaps before but certainly after, who’ve given the garment a high-fashion air, running up the design in luxury goods such as cashmere, leather or fine wool flannel and offering it in non-standard colors such as black, red, green or brown.

As for its street credentials, the pea coat was part of the anti-fashion mutiny of the late ‘60s, when the counterculture enlisted military garments and vintage cast-offs to make its sartorial statements.

Nautical and nice: Whether it’s a designer adaptation, the genuine article or something in between, this is one serviceable jacket. It will work with jeans, with leggings, with tailored trousers or skirts--yes--even with bell-bottoms.