Surrey Dinner Jacket | slang (historic) | Archaic local term for a well-worn plaid mackinaw or “Mack” jacket. Typically red/black, green/black, or blue/red, the garment was originally favoured by blue collar workers before being co-opted as a uniform of sorts by successive subcultures (eg. 80’s heavy metal, 90’s grunge, 00’s hipster). Before its “cool” appropriation, it was long associated – derogatorily – with the supposedly less sophisticated residents of Vancouver’s suburbs. Still known nationally as the “Canadian Dinner Jacket” — and far less snobbishly so.

Usage | “Check out that headbanger rocking the Surrey Dinner Jacket…”

Photos: composite of examples 2017 and 1974. (1974 image COV Archives – CVA 800-0571)