Harris Wharf London Men Coach Jacket

Seersucker is made by holding some warp threads under tension and letting others run slack, so the finished cloth puckers into stripes of raised and flat all by itself. That structure is why seersucker sits off the skin instead of on it, why it does not need pressing, and why it is associated with heat. Almost all of it is made in pale blue or ecru, which is the second reason the association sticks. In black, and cut as a coach jacket, it stops being a summer signal and becomes a texture. A coach jacket is one of the plainest patterns in outerwear: straight body, shirt collar, snap front, no structure to speak of, designed to be pulled on over whatever is already being worn. Putting it in a puckered cloth adds the one thing a coach jacket usually lacks, which is a surface worth looking at.

Why we selected it

Black seersucker outerwear is a genuinely unusual idea and it is not a novelty, because the pucker does real work in the heat. It answers the question of what to wear over a shirt in August.

Materials and construction

Sixty-five percent cotton and thirty-five percent polyester, woven as a seersucker, made in Italy. Single breasted, with snap buttons and a shirt collar. Color: Black.

Fit notes

A coach jacket is cut straight and roomy by design and is meant to go over things. The seersucker holds its own shape rather than following yours, so it hangs away from the body, which is the point of the cloth. Light enough to be carried rather than worn for half the day.

Styling

Over a t-shirt, over a shirt, over a fine knit. With a wide trouser, because the jacket is boxy and a narrow leg under a boxy top makes the top look larger. Black on black lets the pucker be the only texture in the outfit.

Care

Wash cool and hang to dry, and do not iron it, ever. Ironing seersucker flattens the pucker that the cloth was constructed to have, and the polyester content means a hot iron can flatten it permanently. Our general guidance on polyester and technical cloth covers the rest.

Related pieces

The Shirt Jacket Patterned Moleskin is a four-fiber wool blend woven as a dark blue herringbone. The Western Jacket is boiled wool left unlined, and the Men Pleated Trousers are virgin wool woven in Japan and made in Italy. There is more on the house on the Harris Wharf London designer page. Everything we carry from Harris Wharf London is listed together.