3Sixteen Type 3s Denim Jacket – Double Black

(As the Type 3s in Washed Blue: the Type III pattern with a lengthened body, hand pockets lined in 8oz cotton twill, and the house’s crossed back yoke in place of the original’s straight one, cut and sewn in the United States. Shared across the group.)

Why we selected it

We already sell the denim this jacket is the other half of, and a store that sells one and not the other is asking a customer to go somewhere else to finish the thought. The real reason is the crossed yoke: a piece of drafting nothing about the garment requires, done consistently across a shirt and a jacket for long enough that it has stopped being a flourish and become how the house draws. We took it in two denims because on a jacket like this the cloth is the whole decision, and the two go different ways.

The denim

Double black means black in both directions, warp and weft, and it is the more serious way to make a black denim. The usual method is to dye a black warp over a white or indigo weft, which is cheaper and which means the first thing that happens as the jacket wears is that a different colour comes up from underneath. Here there is nothing underneath. What surfaces as the cloth abrades is a lighter version of the same black, so the jacket moves toward grey at the elbows, the cuffs, and the pocket mouths and stays black across the back and the chest where nothing touches it. That is a slower and quieter kind of ageing than indigo produces, and it is the reason to choose black denim rather than a substitute for it. This is a selvedge denim, woven on narrow shuttle looms that finish their own edge, which is the clean banded seam you find if you turn back the front placket.

Materials and construction

One hundred percent cotton selvedge denim, black warp and black weft. Made in the United States. Crossed back yoke, lengthened body, two flapped chest pockets, and hand pockets lined in 8oz cotton twill.

Fit notes

A trucker cut: close through the body by the standards of a work jacket, drawn to go over a shirt rather than a sweater, with tabs at the waistband to bring the hem in. Heavyweight denim starts firm and gives at the elbow and across the shoulders over the first weeks. If you intend to wear a flannel underneath, take the size that clears one rather than the one that fits over a tee.

Styling

Over the black Pima tee with the CT-222xs, which is black on black on black and works because the three are three different blacks. Over the Crosscut Flannel in cream and black. With the Cargo Pant in charcoal, where two dark neutrals are more interesting than a match. Black denim goes places blue denim cannot, which is most of the argument for owning it.

Care

Wash cold, inside out, and hang to dry. Black cotton loses depth to heat and to friction far faster than it does to detergent, so the dryer is the thing to avoid if you want the fading to happen where you use the jacket rather than everywhere at once. Our care guidance covers denim, including how selvedge differs.

Related pieces

The same idea in a trouser is the CT-222xs Classic Taper. In indigo, the CS-100x, and in blue, the Type 3s in Washed Blue. It sits over the Crosscut Flannel in Cream/Black, with the Cargo Pant in Charcoal HBT, and over the Pima Cotton T-Shirt Pack in Black. Everything we currently hold from 3Sixteen is listed together.