Rick Owens Bauhaus Jacket – Brown

The zip is the argument. A conventional leather jacket runs its closure up the centre front or on a diagonal borrowed from a motorcycle jacket, and either way the eye reads the garment as symmetrical. Move that zip off centre and the whole front becomes a single uninterrupted plane with one line falling through it, which is why an Owens leather jacket photographs as a shape rather than as a garment with details. It is a small decision with large consequences, and it is the reason this silhouette has been copied for two decades without ever being got quite right.

Everything else here follows from that. The neck stands high rather than folding into a collar, so there is nothing to break the line at the top. The hem runs straight across instead of curving, so the jacket ends where it ends. The cuffs button rather than zip, which is the one place the garment allows itself a piece of traditional tailoring. Brown is the harder colour and the more interesting one: black leather reads as a category, brown reads as an object, and it sits against indigo, bone, and grey in ways black simply refuses to.

Underneath it is shearling, which changes what the jacket is for. This is not a spring leather.

We bought this for the customer who has already owned a black leather jacket and wants the next one to be better rather than louder. Brown is the reason. It is the harder sell on a rail and the easier garment to live in, and it is the version we would keep for ourselves. The shearling lining also settles the question of season, which matters here: a great many leather jackets go unlined and are three-week garments in a Santa Fe year, and this one carries from October through March without a coat over it.

Owens has built the leather jacket into the load-bearing piece of his line, and the Bauhaus is the version where the asymmetry is stated most plainly rather than dramatised.

Outer in 100% calf leather. Lining in 100% shearling, with 100% cupro and 100% cotton. Made in Italy, in Brown. Off-centre zip closure, high neck, long sleeves with buttoned cuffs, straight hem.

A shearling-lined leather is a jacket you buy to the outer layer, not to the shirt. There is real loft inside it, so the size that feels correct over a tee will feel close over a heavy knit, and most customers who intend to wear a sweater underneath are better served by the larger size. Leather does not relax the way wool does; it takes the shape of the person wearing it slowly and then keeps it. The shoulder is the part to judge in person, because it is the one measurement a leather jacket will never forgive.

Over a fine knit and tailored wool trousers is the version we would show it in. Over a hooded sweatshirt and denim it becomes something else entirely and works just as well, which is the whole point of a jacket built on a plain shape. Brown leather with black is a better combination than most people expect and is worth trying before defaulting to brown with brown.

Leather and shearling want air, not product. Hang it on a broad hanger with space around it, let it dry naturally and away from direct heat if it gets wet, and take it to a specialist who handles shearling rather than a general dry cleaner when it eventually needs attention. A skin and a fleece want different treatments and one process can spoil the other, which is the whole reason a lined jacket of this kind is specialist work. We do not recommend a conditioning schedule, because the right interval depends on how the piece is worn and over-conditioning a fine calf skin does more harm than leaving it alone. Our care guidance covers shearling directly, and we are happy to talk about a specific piece.

We would point to the Bauhaus Jacket in Black, the Classic Biker Jacket, the Cerberus Bag, and the Adri Bag for the same leather register. Everything we currently hold from Rick Owens is listed together.