“Putting your lead in Carhartt gives the audience something recognisable,” says Adam Cheung, style writer at British GQ. “It tells you this isn’t some superhero or billionaire genius. It’s just a normal dude trying to get through an extraordinary situation.”

Cinema has a habit of slinging normal dudes into extraordinary situations. See Ryan Gosling’s science teacher turned astronaut in Project Hail Mary. Or take The Dog Stars, Ridley Scott’s upcoming post-apocalyptic sci-fi film, set in the aftermath of a – wait for it – flu pandemic that has wiped out most of humanity. Only the normal dude in this scenario happens to be Jacob Elordi.

The actor plays Hig, a rugged civilian pilot who swerved the serious sniffles. And you know he’s a survivor because, for once, the 6ft 5in actor isn’t wearing Bottega Veneta, but a classic Carhartt Detroit jacket in a worn-in shade of green.

The wardrobe for the film comes courtesy of Janty Yates, the Oscar-winning costume designer who has worked with Scott on a string of projects. Although we’d assume this one was less of a stretch than say Gladiator, Napoleon or The Martian.

Earlier this summer, you might have spotted Josh O’Connor in Disclosure Day wearing a Carhartt utility vest. The brand’s logo was in fact one of the first things you see in Steven Spielberg’s conspiracy thriller. Or think back to Matthew McConaughey in 2014’s Interstellar rocking a custom Carhartt piece. If ever there’s a regular Joe to be pitted against an existential, potentially extraterrestrial, challenge, look for the distinctive square patch somewhere on his person.

“I don’t think it’s an accident,” Cheung says of Elordi’s jacket. “Good costume design is all about telling you who someone is before they’ve even said a word and Carhartt does that instantly. You see a Detroit jacket and you don’t think ‘fashion’. You think someone who fixes things, builds things, works with their hands. That’s especially useful in sci-fi, where everything else might be futuristic or unfamiliar.”

“It’s an easy and understandable shorthand for someone being an ordinary, working person,” agrees Jack Stanley, the menswear writer and cofounder of SLOP magazine. “That logo immediately translates the character and their background, which helps to ground the character and their story. They are references we all understand, most people know what Carhartt is, they know about its workwear heritage and they know the kind of person who has traditionally worn it.”

Obviously, this all depends on which Carhartt we’re talking about. “In America, Carhartt has always been genuine workwear,” Cheung says. “It’s what farmers, mechanics and construction workers wore because it was built to take a beating. Europe largely came to it through Carhartt WIP. Most people discovered the label through skateboarding, streetwear and fashion rather than on a building site. So, for years, there were almost two completely different Carhartts existing at the same time.” Which sounds like a sci-fi scenario in itself.

“That’s blurred a lot over the past decade,” Cheung continues. “Vintage American workwear has become hugely influential. Plenty of people buying Carhartt today appreciate both sides of the brand.”

“I remember going to New York in the 2000s and buying the non-WIP version from workwear stores that also sold hi-vis vests,” says Lauren Cochrane, senior fashion writer for The Guardian and author of The Ten: The Stories Behind The Fashion Classics. “These now exist side by side – especially as creative types have taken on the Carhartt jacket as a fashion item.”

“There are also the ‘stolen valour’ memes, which I think helped bridge the gap between the two understandings of Carhartt for trendy graphic designers on one side and American mechanics on the other,” Stanley says. “I think Hollywood is tapping into the authentic workwear history, something we all understand and can decode when we see it on film. It’s a shorthand way of introducing a character as an everyman, someone just like us.”

“It’s not dressing characters in Carhartt because it’s cool, it’s using Carhartt because it communicates honesty, resilience and practicality in one hit,” Cheung adds.

In a doomsday situation, would he, too, reach for his Carhartt haul? “You know, I probably would,” Cheung says. “Not because I think the little square logo has magical powers or anything like that, but because Carhartt has spent over a century building a reputation on making clothes that last. The Detroit jacket wasn’t designed to look rugged. It was designed to be rugged. The best workwear always carries a bit of authenticity with it, and audiences can tell when something has genuinely been built for hard use rather than styled to look that way. That’s probably why it feels so at home in these films. You believe the jacket has already lived a life before the camera started rolling.”

“For all the jokes and the memes about Carhartt, people may overlook that its workwear gear is really well made and really hardwearing,” Stanley adds. “Surely that’s what you need at the end of the world?”