The year was 2018, and it was the coat worn around the world — or at least the Upper East Side. Former New York contributing writer Amy Larocca kept seeing this army green Orolay winter coat donned by stylish New York women and sent editor Katy Schneider down the rabbit hole to try to find the source of the trend. Schneider found that it seemingly started percolating uptown around 2016 and spread through word of mouth. At the time, it was just $100 on Amazon.
The craze only intensified after we wrote about it. It became a Strategist best seller and went viral, both online and in real life: It became difficult to walk five blocks without seeing at least as many coats. And it wasn’t just New York; the coat was spotted around the world. It even ended up among “Oprah’s Favorite Things” and on countless other sites. The coat now comes in many more colors than the original army green, including red, yellow, and navy as well as camo, and there’s even a version with a fur-trimmed hood.
As the Orolay puffer’s popularity skyrocketed, so did the price. It went up from just under $100 to $140 two years after we wrote about it, and it currently retails for $160. But just for Prime Day, it’s cheaper than when we first saw it in 2018, even accounting for inflation: You can snag the coat today for just $88 (but just until midnight).
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