A Full Day, One Jacket

A Full Day, One Jacket

A craftsman in Seattle sits down in the morning with one jacket and gets up at the end of the day with it finished. Not a seam, not a station, not his part of it. The whole jacket, start to finish, by the same pair of hands.

That is the arithmetic, and it decides everything else. It is why the leather sells in windows, three or four times a year, with nothing in between. You cannot keep a day in a warehouse.

The holiday window is open right now. It closes in a few weeks.

The COMMANDER, in natural and in black charcoal

Horsehide tanned at Horween in Chicago, finished roughout, with the nap facing out. There is no lining in this jacket. There does not need to be. The hide is doing the work of two materials at once, which is a thing only very good leather can get away with.

The natural starts pale. It goes honey, and then it goes amber, and it gets there unevenly. Elbows first, then the forearms, wherever you actually use your arms. Hand two people the same jacket and come back in two years and you will be looking at two different jackets. The black charcoal takes its own road and I am not going to spoil it.

It is cut like a shirt and it sits at the belt, so it goes over a tee in October and under a wool coat in January. Our own YKK snaps. Made in the USA, X-Small through XXX-Large. Roughout, rough out and rough-out are the same thing, and COMMANDER is what everybody calls this shape.

The Northern Dream, natural and tea dyed

Veg tanned Horween horsehide outside, long curly lambskin from northern British Columbia inside.

A medium takes four sheepskins. Four animals. Every one of them curls differently, with its own hair length and its own idea of which way to lie, and no amount of money makes them match. I would not want them to match. It is the reason the jacket that goes to you is not the jacket that goes to anybody else.

The tea dyed is a tan I worked out with Horween and it exists nowhere else. Both are sewn in Seattle, one at a time, a day apiece.

The Long Curly Lamb and Botanical Indigo Denim coat

Botanical indigo, rope dyed on organic cotton, woven for us into 13oz selvedge on a shuttle loom in Okayama. Then the long curly lamb through the collar and the front and the body, and horn buttons down the length of it.

Indigo and sheepskin have no business looking this good together. I put mine on a hook where I walk past it and I still stop.

It gets one preorder a year, and this is the one.

The vests

The same two materials on a TALON zipper that turns the whole thing around whenever you want it turned. Horsehide out on a clear cold day. Lamb out when you want people to ask. Three of them this year, and the WOMAN vest has its first preorder ever open right now.

A sleeve that stops where I want it to stop

The 7/8 sleeve pocket shirt is back in, in army, navy and charcoal. I made that length because nobody else was making it. A full sleeve is too much in November and a short sleeve is not a winter shirt, and the gap between those two is where I live from now until March.

10.5oz slub cotton produced in the USA and then garment dyed in our own colors. Heirloom flat stitch seams. Designed and made in Seattle. I am stoked on these for the holidays.

Four pairs of jeans, stocked for the holidays

The Limited Edition 15oz button fly Cowboy. The Indigo Cowboy, which is the traditional pair, in 13oz selvedge woven for us in Okayama. The BLACK Cowboy, the same cloth, stitched in our own black thread. And the double front, 13.5oz Japanese selvedge with a roughout horsehide patch at the back.

The front pocket is cut wide on these, so a real cowboy buckle has somewhere to sit instead of fighting you all day. It is a small thing and it took a long time to get right.

They come long. That is on purpose, so you can do your own thing with them. I roll mine.

Your turn

If you have a Black Bear Brand leather jacket that has a few years on it, send me a photograph. I would rather look at that than almost anything.

Have a nice day. I mean that.

josh

SHOP THE STORY

The COMMANDER Rough-RIDER Natural Horsehide RoughOut Western Jacket

The COMMANDER BLACK CHARCOAL Horsehide RoughOut Western Jacket

Northern Dream Jacket, Horween Horsehide with Long Curl Lambskin

Northern Dream Jacket, TEA DYED

Long Curly Lamb and Botanical Indigo Denim Winter Coat

Northern Dream Reversible Vest