It pissed me off that it essentially got trench coats banned at high schools. I graduated in 1995 and my friends and I all wore black trench coats all through high school. I even had a leather one what I loved (I've actually been thinking about getting a mock leather trench coat recently). It was stupid enough that my high school had a no hat rule.
Oh, man. Yeah, I would be mad too. Especially after the dust settled and it turned out the Trench Coat Mafia was just harmless tech geeks (with the exception of the shooters, ofc), not Nazis and terrorists.
I'd say get the mock leather trenchcoat, and rock it.
I’m younger than you folks but the trench coat kids scared the shit out of me after Columbine - mostly because of the media fearmongering. Remember “rock is the devil’s music” days?
Then I went to HS and became a JNCO jeans and trench coat kid, and the crew was the most down-to-earth and accepting folks I knew. Scariest thing about me back then was how long I could play PC games for every day.
We all wore black turtlenecks, black pants, black socks, black shoes and black trench coats because we were in drama club and trying to be Eurotrash. Sort of like the Mike Meyers Sprockets SNL sketches but not a joke.
It's more a matter of cost than worrying about what I'll look like in it. I've never given a fuck what other people thought of what I looked like. I look like how I want to look.
But a nice one, and I'd hate to get a cheap one and just have to replace it in a year, is upwards of $150 and I can't really afford that right now.