Engineered Garments Andover Jacket – Charcoal

Gaberdine is a steep twill woven from tightly spun worsted yarn and then compacted until the surface closes almost completely. Thomas Burberry patented it in 1879 to make a cloth that would shed rain without the rubber that made a mackintosh airless, and the principle has not changed: pack the yarn tightly enough and water runs across the face instead of through it, while air still moves. It is a serious cloth. It holds a crease, it resists shine longer than a soft woollen does, and it is the fabric that the twentieth century’s most durable coats were made from.

The Andover is what this house does when it addresses tailoring directly. Where the Bedford removes structure, the Andover keeps some: it is darted at the front, which is the operation that turns a flat panel of cloth into a shape that follows a chest, and it carries four flap pockets rather than four patch ones. A flap pocket is set into the cloth and closes over itself, which is the tailored solution, where the patch pocket applied on top is the workwear one. So the Andover in charcoal worsted gaberdine is the closest this brand comes to a jacket you could wear to something formal, and it still is not one, because four pockets is two more than tailoring allows and that is the joke the whole model rests on.

Why we selected it

Almost nobody is making a tailored jacket that a person under sixty actually wants to put on. This is the one from this house that reads as a jacket rather than as a garment about jackets, and charcoal worsted is the version that will still be right in ten years.

Engineered Garments is a workwear house that keeps circling tailoring, and the Andover is where it lands every time.

Materials and construction

One hundred percent wool in a charcoal worsted gaberdine, made in the USA. Darted at the front with four flap pockets. Colour: Charcoal.

Fit notes

The front darts mean this follows the chest in a way the Bedford does not, so it is the model in this house that most rewards judging in person and the one that is least forgiving of a shoulder that is wrong for you. Worsted gaberdine has very little give, so take the size you can move in. It holds its shape across a day and hangs out overnight.

Styling

With the FW24 Andover Pant in the same cloth, which is the way it was drawn. Or split it: over the Rounded Collar Shirt with the Officer Pant, or over a fine knit with indigo denim, which is the pairing that keeps the jacket from looking like the top half of a suit.

Care

Hang it on a shaped hanger and brush it rather than cleaning it, which is true of any wool jacket and truer of a worsted, where over-cleaning is what eventually flattens the surface. Use a cleaner when it needs one. Never press it hot on the face, because worsted glazes and the shine does not come out. Our wool care guidance covers the rest.

Related pieces

The FW24 Andover Pant is cut from the same charcoal gaberdine. The model in an open summer wool is the Andover Jacket in tropical wool, and in cotton the Andover Jacket in beige seersucker. The Rounded Collar Shirt is the shirt underneath. Everything we carry from Engineered Garments is listed together.