BLANK Cropped BDU Jacket

BDU is the Battle Dress Uniform, the American field uniform adopted in 1981, and its coat is a specific object: four pockets, a button front, and worn out over the trousers rather than tucked into them. This one has been taken up to the waist, which leaves two flap pockets and the button line, and it is a fair question whether what is left is still the garment. It is, because the cloth is.

Cotton ripstop is a plain weave with heavier yarns laid in on a grid, so a tear runs to the edge of its cell and stops there instead of opening up across a panel. That is why a field jacket can weigh so little and still be a field jacket. Four buttons down the front, two flap pockets, one hundred percent cotton, in Olive, made in the USA.

Why we selected it

Cropped military jackets are usually cropped by somebody who has never handled the original, and they read as a reference to a garment rather than as one. This one keeps the cloth, the flap pockets, and the button front, and changes only the length. That is the whole difference.

BLANK names its sources rather than hiding them, and this is the piece that does it in the title.

Materials and construction

One hundred percent cotton, woven as ripstop, in Olive. A four-button front and two flap pockets, cut to the waist. Made in the USA. We do not hold a collar type, a cuff treatment, a lining, or the position of the two pockets, and we describe none of them.

Fit notes

Sized on a short numeric run rather than on small, medium, and large. A waist-length jacket has nowhere to hide a fit. It ends where the body is widest through the ribs and it is read against whatever is worn under it, so the size that works is the one that closes over the thing you will actually wear, not the one that closes at all. Ripstop does not stretch and will not help you. We do not hold measurements. Call the store and someone will measure it for you.

Styling

Open, over a fine knit, because a four-button front done up to the top turns it back into a uniform and worn open it is a jacket. Over either Monkey Skirt, where the crop and the vent are doing the same job at two ends of the body. Over the Arthur Pants, where olive against charcoal is the entire outfit and nothing else has to happen.

Care

Wash it cool and hang it to dry. Press it warm if you want the flaps to lie flat, and press the placket from the reverse so the buttons are not taking the iron. Our care guidance covers the rest.

Related pieces

The Monkey Skirt in ripstop is the same cloth and the same color in a skirt, and the Monkey Skirt in corduroy is that shape for the cold half of the year. Everything we carry from this house is listed together.