Comme des Garçons Homme Plus Boiled Wool Jacket

A double-breasted jacket is normally half of something. The crossed front and the long lapel line belong to suiting, and worn over a different trouser most double-breasted jackets look like they have mislaid the other half. The cloth is what rescues this one. Boiled wool has been shrunk and felted after the cloth was made, so the face is dense and matted rather than smooth and the whole thing reads closer to a heavy knit than to a suiting. That single difference moves the garment out of the suit’s register and into the jacket’s, which is why this one can go over almost anything without raising the question. In cream it manages that and stays quiet, which is not a combination that comes up often. Ninety percent wool and ten percent nylon, made in Japan.

Why we selected it

The odd jacket is the hardest thing in a wardrobe to buy well, because most of the candidates are suit jackets that have been separated from their trousers and still look it. This one never will, and the cloth is the reason.

Comme des Garçons Homme Plus keeps making tailoring and keeps declining to let it behave like tailoring, and the cloth is usually where that decision gets taken.

Materials and construction

Ninety percent wool and ten percent nylon. Double-breasted. Made in Japan. Color: Cream. We hold no lining, no button count, and no vent for this jacket, and we are not going to invent them. Please ask us and we will look at it with you.

Fit notes

A double-breasted front lays two layers of cloth across the chest and a dense boiled face adds body to both of them, so this reads substantial at any size and is sized on the shoulder. Cream is not a neutral: it shows what is worn under it, and a dark garment beneath a pale cloth reads as a shadow rather than as nothing. It goes over a fine knit and fights a heavy one.

Styling

Over the Homme LS Button-Up, which is the plainest thing to put under a pale jacket. With the Homme Plus Wool Trousers in black, where the jacket is the only event. The cream trouser in this cloth comes with the Homme Plus Boiled Wool Suit, and the jacket that comes with it is this jacket, one pattern and one cloth, so what the suit adds is the trouser and a size of its own rather than a different jacket.

Care

Wool at ninety percent governs. Have it cleaned rather than washed, and keep it out of a machine and away from heat, since heat and agitation are what shrink and felt a wool cloth. A pale jacket is stored clean or it is not really stored, because a mark left in wool sets and moths go to a soiled patch first. Our care guidance covers the rest.

Related pieces

The Homme Plus Boiled Wool Suit is this same jacket sold with a trouser in the same cloth, and the Homme Plus Button Cardigan is acrylic and wool knitted. Everything we carry from Comme des Garçons is listed together.