Engineered Garments Printed Raglan Hoody

A raglan sleeve has no shoulder seam. Instead of a sleeve set into a round armhole, the sleeve runs in one piece from the underarm all the way up to the neck, on a long diagonal seam across the front and the back. It was drawn in the nineteenth century for a man who had lost an arm and needed a coat he could get into unaided, and it survives because of what it turned out to do for everybody else. With no seam sitting on the point of the shoulder, the arm moves through its whole range without the garment resisting anywhere, and the shoulder line goes soft instead of square.

The rest is a heavyweight cotton fleece, which is a knit brushed on the inside until the loops break open into a nap, so the face stays smooth and the back holds a layer of air. A snap placket rather than a zip. A pouch pocket across the front. None of it is complicated, and all of it is why this shape has been in continuous production since the 1930s while nearly everything around it changed.

The colour

Navy with a lightning figure across it. Printing onto a brushed surface is not the same operation as printing onto a flat one: the nap stands up and scatters the edge of every line, so a print on fleece is always slightly diffused, and a bold, simple figure is the only kind that survives the treatment. A lightning bolt is exactly that kind of figure. Navy carries it without the contrast turning harsh, which a black ground would.

The hooded sweatshirt is everywhere, and most of them are made to a price. A heavy fleece, a raglan sleeve, and a snap front are the three things that separate one that lasts from one that does not.

One hundred percent heavyweight cotton fleece, made in the USA. Snap-button front with a pouch pocket. Colour: Navy with a lightning print.

A raglan sleeve reads roomier through the shoulder than a set-in one at the same measurement, because nothing marks where the shoulder ends. Heavy cotton fleece has give and good recovery, and it will shrink slightly on a first hot wash, which is worth avoiding rather than allowing for.

With the FW24 FA Pant in black. Under the Bedford Jacket in black moleskin, where the print is the only thing happening. With the Olive Cotton Reverse Sateen Fatigue Pant, navy against olive.

Wash cool and inside out, which matters more here than on a plain fleece: a print cracks and lifts under abrasion in a drum, and inside out is what keeps the face away from everything else. Keep it out of a hot dryer and out of strong sun, both of which take depth out of a print. Our cotton care guidance covers the rest.

The same fleece without the print is the Raglan Hoodie in graphite. The FW24 FA Pant in black and the Olive Cotton Reverse Sateen Fatigue Pant are the trousers, and the Bedford Jacket in black moleskin the jacket that lets a print speak. There is more on the house on the Engineered Garments designer page. Everything we carry from Engineered Garments is listed together.