Camiel Fortgens Short Gap Coat

Ninety percent wool with ten percent nylon is a coating cloth rather than a suiting one, and the ten percent is doing something specific: nylon adds tensile strength to a wool that would otherwise wear thin at the cuff and the seat of the shoulder, which are the two places a short coat dies first. The length is the argument. A coat that stops at the waist has to be cut boxy or it looks like a jacket that shrank, and this one is cut slightly boxy, so it sits over a shirt or a knit without riding up when the arms move. The hems are raw, which on a wool coat is a genuinely unusual decision, since a cut wool edge is the one thing every coatmaker is trained to bind or face. Left alone, it reads as a line drawn rather than a border applied.

Short coats are usually either a blouson or a cropped overcoat, and both are awkward. This is neither, and the color is a black that has somewhere to go rather than a flat one.

Leaving a wool edge cut rather than bound is the clearest example in this house's outerwear of what it does to a garment archetype.

Ninety percent wool and ten percent nylon, made in Ukraine. Slightly boxy cut, falling at the waist, with raw hems. Color: Black Navy.

Cut to fall at the waist, so it wants to be worn over pieces that either end there or run well past it, and looks unresolved over something that ends just below. Slightly boxy through the body, which is what lets it go over a knit. Wool of this weight has recovery in it and will hang out its own creases overnight on a hanger.

Over the Cocktail Dress. Over the Boxy Shirt and the Suit Pants. Over the Trackpants and the Big Tee LS, which is the pairing that makes the coat do the most work.

Wool wants brushing far more often than it wants cleaning, and a coat that is aired overnight between wearings will need a cleaner perhaps once a season. Never press a raw wool edge with a hot dry iron. Store it on a broad hanger. Our care guidance covers the rest.

The Short Mac Coat is a laminated cotton with a large straight collar and pockets set below the hem, and the Simple Jacket is nylon at a medium weight with every hem unfinished. Everything we carry from Camiel Fortgens is listed together.