Long describes Holmes’s wardrobe as that of “a modern English gentleman. The greatcoat and the deerstalker were key components of any gentleman’s wardrobe in England at that time period.” Thanks to the popularity of the Holmes stories, plays, and films, they remain so in the popular imagination today. Holmes’s clothes in their various iterations are both timeless and very much of their times. The three most indelible Sherlocks—Paget’s original illustrations, Basil Rathbone in the 1930s, and Cumberbatch—all wear contemporary dress, yet they are all unmistakably the same character.

One movie poster called Holmes “the original caped crusader.”

Take that coat, for example. In the stories, Holmes was “enveloped” in an Ulster, a long, single-breasted coat with a small collar and an attached a hip-length cape. Conan Doyle also mentioned an “overcoat” (possibly the same one) and a “long grey travelling-cloak.” These have morphed over time into one stately, billowing garment, lending the character the mystery and panache of a superhero. (The poster for the 1965 film A Study in Terror called Holmes “the original caped crusader.”) Rathbone’s iconic tartan coat was tailored for the big screen, with a more mobile, elbow-length cape and a wide, face-framing collar. Cumberbatch’s coat—an off-the-rack number by British label Belstaff—was inspired not by the Victorian ulster but the 18th-century greatcoat, with its high, stiffened collar and wide lapels. Instead of a cape, its double-breasted front and pleated, belted back provide volume and movement.