Honestly it's down to personality.

I wore a trench coat for the first half of grade 10 til I got enough patches sewn on my denim vest (thanks for doing the 'TEAM SATAN' back patch for me, mom!) and there really wasn't much issue. I ran with the punk and metal kids, but because I was friendly and loud I was actually really popular. Got invites to parties from all the groups.

...although it may have helped I was (am) abnormally large. Like the football coach pleading with me and trying to bribe my dad into making me play. 6'5" and 240 lbs in grade 10. Not fat either, grew up doing chores on my neighbour's farm. First week I beat the piss out of a couple big guys (grew up scrapping with Dutch farm boys) that were bullying smaller people.

Anyways, like I said it's personality.

What I mean by this is that while I was wearing my trench there were a couple other guys that tried wearing them as well. These guys were actually the weird dudes and they were freaking out the office staff (post-Columbine) and they were told they weren't allowed to wear them anymore.

Then there was me. Absolutely loved by the office staff cause I charmed the fuck out of them old biddies on my many, many trips to the office.