4S Designs Leather Denim Utility Jacket

Trompe-l’œil is Angelo Urrutia’s signature, and this is the fullest version of it. The jacket is leather. It has been debossed, which means a texture has been pressed into the hide under heat and pressure, and then printed, so that the surface carries both the relief and the color of raw cotton denim. Raw denim is a specific and difficult thing to imitate, because what makes it recognizable is not the blue but the dryness: the slightly chalky, unwashed, faintly irregular face of a twill that has not been broken in. Getting that onto a hide takes two separate processes agreeing with each other, and the result is a garment that is read wrong across a room and read correctly at arm’s length. The cut is a utility jacket, which is the right frame for the joke, because a utility jacket is the most literal, least decorated shape in a wardrobe and it makes the deception land harder. Blue.

Why we selected it

We do not usually buy a garment for an idea. This one is the idea executed well enough that it stops being a gimmick and becomes a very good leather jacket that happens to be doing something else as well.

Making leather that does not look like leather is the thing this house is best known for, and this is the garment that argument was made on.

Materials and construction

Leather, debossed and printed with a raw denim effect. Cut as a utility jacket. Color: Blue.

We do not hold a composition figure for this piece, and we do not hold a country of origin. Nearly everything else in this collection states Made in Italy and this does not, so it is not assumed. What is described is the surface and the construction, which is what the garment is actually about. Please ask us and we will look at the piece with you.

Fit notes

Sized 48 and 50 on the Italian jacket scale. A printed and debossed hide is stiffer than an unfinished one and will take longer to break in, and it will break in at the elbow and the front placket first, which is where the effect will start to look most like real denim wear. Leather does not shrink back once it has stretched, so it wants sizing to be worn rather than sizing to grow into.

Styling

Over the Knit BD Shirt Western or the Long Sleeve Woven Polo. With the Mil Pant or the James Cargo Pant, which keeps the register military and lets the jacket be the only thing making a claim. Not with the 5 Pocket Denim in either color, unless the double take is the point.

Care

Treat this as leather rather than as denim, whatever it looks like. Keep it away from heat and standing damp, condition it sparingly rather than often, and take anything beyond surface cleaning to a leather specialist and tell them the surface is printed. Our care guidance covers the rest.

Related pieces

The 5 Pocket Denim Black is the cotton denim this jacket is imitating, cut as a jean. Everything we carry from 4S Designs is listed together.