Engineered Garments Folk Jacket

The interesting thing about this jacket is what it is not. It is cut in the same beige seersucker as the brand’s tailored Andover, from the same puckered, loom-woven cloth that holds itself off the skin and cannot be creased because it is permanently creased already. But where the Andover is darted at the front and hung with flap pockets, the Folk is a button front and four patch pockets, which is the workwear grammar rather than the tailored one. A patch pocket is applied to the surface and shows its edges. A flap pocket is cut into the cloth and hides its opening. Those two decisions are most of what separates a work coat from a sports jacket, and this house makes both from the same bolt in the same season and lets you choose.

Seersucker in the workwear register is the less obvious of the two and arguably the better one, because the cloth’s associations run so hard toward the summer suit that putting it on a four-pocket chore shape undoes the reference entirely. What is left is a light, airy, faintly striped jacket that is doing nothing but being comfortable in heat.

Why we selected it

We took the tailored version of this cloth and the untailored one, because they are genuinely different garments and most people want one or the other rather than both.

Materials and construction

One hundred percent cotton seersucker, made in the USA. Button closure with four patch pockets. Colour: Beige Seersucker.

Fit notes

Cut square and unshaped rather than darted, so it hangs from the shoulder and takes a layer underneath easily. Seersucker is light with a little natural give from the puckering, so it moves well. Size on the shoulder. It will look rumpled immediately and should.

Styling

Over the Work Shirt in natural with the Painter Pant. Over the Polo Shirt in white with the RF Trousers. Beige seersucker against olive and against indigo are the two readings that keep it out of the summer-suit register entirely.

Care

Wash cool and hang to dry. Do not iron it: pressing a seersucker flattens the pucker and removes the reason the cloth exists. Our cotton care guidance covers the rest.

Related pieces

The Andover Jacket in beige seersucker is the tailored jacket in this cloth and the Andover Pant in beige seersucker the trouser. The Bedford Jacket in olive cotton ripstop is the light jacket cut in a gridded cotton, and the Work Shirt in natural goes under it. Everything we carry from Engineered Garments is listed together.