A duster is a light, loose-fitting long coat

Coat (clothing)

A coat is a long garment worn by both men and women, for warmth or fashion. Coats typically have long sleeves and are open down the front, closing by means of buttons, zippers, hook-and-loop fasteners, toggles, a belt, or a combination of some of these...

.

The original dusters were full-length, light-colored canvas

Canvas

Canvas is an extremely heavy-duty plain-woven fabric used for making sails, tents, marquees, backpacks, and other items for which sturdiness is required. It is also popularly used by artists as a painting surface, typically stretched across a wooden frame...

 or linen

Linen

Linen is a textile made from the fibers of the flax plant, Linum usitatissimum. Linen is labor-intensive to manufacture, but when it is made into garments, it is valued for its exceptional coolness and freshness in hot weather....

 coats worn by horsemen to protect their clothing from trail dust. These dusters were typically slit up the back to hip level for ease of wear on horseback and were the recommended "uniform" for Texas Rangers

Texas Ranger Division

The Texas Ranger Division, commonly called the Texas Rangers, is a law enforcement agency with statewide jurisdiction in Texas, and is based in Austin, Texas...

. Dusters intended for riding may have features such as a buttonable rear slit and leg straps to hold the flaps in place. For better protection against rain, dusters were made from oilcloth and later from waxed cotton

Waxed cotton

Waxed cotton is as the name suggests, is cotton impregnated with a paraffin based wax, woven into a cloth. Widely used from the mid-19th century to the mid-1950s, the product which originated in the sailing industry in Scotland, became widely used by many to make themselves waterproof...

.

At the turn of the twentieth century, both men and women wore dusters to protect their clothes when riding in open motorcars

Automobile

An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...

 on the dirt roads of the day.

Dusters today

Western horsemen's dusters gained renewed popularity in the late twentieth century and are now a standard item of western wear

Western wear

Western wear is a category of men's and women's clothing which derives its unique style from the clothes worn in the 19th-century American West. It ranges from accurate historical reproductions of pioneer, mountain man, Civil War, cowboy and vaquero clothing to the stylized garments popularized by...

. They figured little in Western films until Sergio Leone

Sergio Leone

Sergio Leone was an Italian film director, producer and screenwriter most associated with the "Spaghetti Western" genre.Leone's film-making style includes juxtaposing extreme close-up shots with lengthy long shots...

 re-introduced them in his movies The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and Once Upon a Time in the West

Once Upon a Time in the West

Once Upon a Time in the West is a 1968 Italian epic spaghetti western film directed by Sergio Leone for Paramount Pictures. It stars Henry Fonda cast against type as the villain, Charles Bronson as his nemesis, Jason Robards as a bandit, and Claudia Cardinale as a newly widowed homesteader with a...

. The latter played for many months in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 and was in part credited with a revival of the duster in men's fashions in that city. In modern times, leather dusters are worn by motorcyclists to prevent road rash

Road rash

Road rash is a colloquial term for skin and bone injury caused by abrasion with road surfaces, usually as a consequence of cycling and motorcycling accidents. The term may be applied to both a fresh injury and the scar tissue left by an old one...

.

Similarly, in the genre of heroic bloodshed

Heroic bloodshed

Heroic Bloodshed is a genre of Hong Kong action cinema revolving around stylized action sequences and dramatic themes such as brotherhood, duty, honour, redemption and violence. The term heroic bloodshed was coined by editor Rick Baker in the magazine Eastern Heroes in the late 1980s, specifically...

, primarily through Chow Yun Fat and John Woo

John Woo

John Woo Yu-Sen SBS is a Hong Kong-based film director and producer. Recognized for his stylised films of highly choreographed action sequences, Mexican standoffs, and use of slow-motion, Woo has directed several notable Hong Kong action films, among them, A Better Tomorrow, The Killer, Hard...

, the hero is often seen wearing a duster (which may be mistaken for a trench coat

Trench coat

A trench coat or trenchcoat is a raincoat made of waterproof heavy-duty cotton drill or poplin, wool gabardine, or leather. It generally has a removable insulated lining; and it is usually knee-length.-History:...

). This has become such a characteristic of the genre that in movies such as The Matrix

The Matrix

The Matrix is a 1999 science fiction-action film written and directed by Larry and Andy Wachowski, starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, and Hugo Weaving...

the hero is often seen wearing a duster.