Engineered Garments Cutaway Jacket Crochet

A cutaway front is a jacket whose front edges sweep back and away from the centre as they descend, so that the two halves stop meeting somewhere below the waist and the garment opens into a curve. It is a nineteenth-century tailoring shape, the morning coat’s defining line, drawn originally so a man could ride in a coat without sitting on it. Detached from that history it does something purely visual: it removes the vertical block of cloth at the front hem and lets whatever is underneath continue the line.

The cloth is the second decision and the one that changes the register completely. It is a machine-made crochet-effect knit rather than crochet itself, which is a real distinction and worth drawing plainly. Hand crochet is one continuous strand worked into loops with a hook, one stitch at a time, and it is slow. What this is instead is a knit engineered on a machine to arrive at the same structure, a fabric built from loops with the holes designed into the pattern, dense at the stitch and open between. Polyester is the reason it holds its geometry: a synthetic yarn keeps an openwork structure stable where a natural one sags under its own weight and does not come back, which is what lets a garment made largely of holes hang like a jacket. In blue and white the openwork reads as pattern before it reads as texture, and the whole proposition is surface and silhouette rather than warmth or protection.

Why we selected it

Openwork over a plain dress or a plain shirt is one of the most useful things a woman can own, and it is almost always sold as a cardigan. This is a jacket shape, and the cutaway front is what makes it one.

Materials and construction

One hundred percent polyester in a machine-made crochet-effect knit, made in the USA. Cutaway front. Colour: Blue and White.

Fit notes

The knit has considerable give in every direction and no structure at all, so it follows what is underneath rather than imposing a shape. The cutaway front means the hem length reads differently at the centre than at the side. It layers over a shirt, a dress, or a fine knit and is not a warm layer.

Styling

Over the Square Neck Shirt with the Sailor Pant. Over the Cagoule Dress or the Banded Collar Dress, where the openwork and the plain ground are doing exactly opposite jobs. Blue and white against natural cotton is the plainest reading.

Care

Wash cool on a gentle cycle inside a mesh bag, or wash it by hand, because an openwork fabric catches on everything else in a drum. Dry it flat rather than on a hanger, since a wet garment is heavier than a dry one and this one hangs from a small number of loops. Keep it away from heat, which is the one thing that will damage a polyester knit permanently. Our care guidance for technical cloth covers the rest.

Related pieces

The Gather Skirt in white rayon eyelet is openwork cut as a skirt. The Cagoule Dress is the long light layer, the Square Neck Shirt goes under either, and the Sailor Pant in olive is the trouser. There is more on the house on the Engineered Garments designer page. Everything we carry from Engineered Garments is listed together.