Engineered Garments Indigo 12oz Denim Utility Jacket

Denim is measured by the weight of a yard of cloth, and the number tells you most of what you need to know about how a garment will behave. Below ten ounces the cloth drapes and does not hold much. Above fourteen it is a serious commitment that takes months to break in and rewards the wait with fading that follows the body exactly. Twelve sits between those, substantial enough that a jacket keeps its own shape on the shoulder and light enough to be worn in April without ceremony.

Indigo is the reason denim is interesting rather than merely durable. It is one of the few dyes that will not penetrate cotton fibre completely, so it sits in rings around a core that stays white, and every point of abrasion, at the elbow, the pocket mouth, the cuff, wears through the coloured layer and exposes the pale interior underneath. That is the entire mechanism behind why a denim jacket looks like the person who wore it. Contrast stitching, which this one has, is the tradition that makes the seams legible while the ground goes pale around them, and on an oversized cut with patch pockets it draws the whole structure of the garment in a second colour.

A denim jacket is a garment a person keeps for twenty years and it is worth having a good one. The oversized cut is what separates this from every other denim jacket, because it layers instead of competing.

One hundred percent cotton in a twelve-ounce denim, made in the USA. Oversized cut with contrast stitching and patch pockets. Colour: Indigo.

Cut oversized on purpose, so it is roomier than a traditional denim jacket at every point and takes a knit or a shirt underneath without pulling. Denim has no stretch until it has been worn in, and at twelve ounces that takes weeks rather than months. Take the size that layers rather than the one that fits over a tee, because the cut assumes the layer.

Over the Work Shirt in natural with the Painter Pant in olive. Over a heavy tee with the Natural Cotton Heavy Fatigue Pant. Indigo against natural cotton is the plainest reading and the best one.

Wash it as little as you can and wash it cold, inside out, and alone. Indigo transfers, especially early, and every wash takes some of the colour with it, which is why a denim garment that is washed rarely fades in a pattern that belongs to the wearer rather than to a machine. Hang to dry. Our denim care guidance covers the rest.

The Bedford Jacket in black moleskin and the Shooting Jacket are the two other heavy cotton jackets in the line. The Natural Cotton Heavy Fatigue Pant and the Painter Pant in olive are the trousers that take a denim jacket without competing with it. There is more on the house on the Engineered Garments designer page. Everything we carry from Engineered Garments is listed together.