Rick Owens Classic Flight Bomber

Almost every flight jacket ever made is a synthetic. The originals were cotton and then coated cotton, the ones people actually own are nylon, and the modern version is polyester from the shell to the fill to the rib. That is not an accident of taste, it is the category doing what it was designed to do: repel weather, dry fast, cost little to replace. Wool fails all three of those tests, which is why nobody puts it here, and why this jacket is worth stopping on.

What wool has instead is memory. It can be pressed into a shape and steamed back into it, it recovers from a crease overnight on a hanger, and it holds a shoulder without anything underneath telling it to. Those are the properties tailoring is built on, and a blouson is the last pattern anyone thinks to use them in. Put them together and the garment changes register entirely. The shape still reads as a bomber, full through the body and closed at the hem, but it stops behaving like outerwear you throw over something and starts behaving like a jacket. It falls from the shoulder instead of sitting on it. It goes matte where the satin and nylon versions go bright, so black in it has depth rather than shine.

It is the same familiar silhouette and it is not the same object at all, and the whole of the difference is one line on a label.

Why we selected it

We already carry the Flight in the material the pattern was drawn for, and this is the argument against it. A bomber is the easiest jacket in anyone’s wardrobe to reach for and usually the least considered thing they own, and a wool one closes that gap without asking the wearer to dress differently. It also answers a Santa Fe problem plainly: a wool blouson works from October through April here, over a knit and under nothing, and it does not read as sportswear in a room where everything else is tailored. That is the entire case and it does not need a second one.

The Flight is the house’s recurring bomber, redrawn each season in a different cloth, and this is the one where the cloth is the whole departure.

Materials and construction

One hundred percent wool. Made in Italy, in black. Cut on the flight jacket pattern: full through the body, ribbed at the collar, cuff, and hem, which is what closes a blouson at its edges and gives the shape its name. We know what the cloth is and nothing more about the inside of the jacket, so we describe no lining and no pocket layout here. Ask us and we will go through the jacket with you.

Fit notes

A blouson is cut with room through the chest and drawn in by ribbing at the waist and wrist, so it reads full above and closed at the edges, and it layers over a knit without adjustment. The ribbed hem sits at or just below the waist, which fixes the length and makes the proportion of the trouser below it the decision. Wool has memory, so unlike the cotton and silk pieces in this range it will settle onto the wearer over the first weeks and then hold that shape rather than continuing to relax.

Styling

Over a fine knit with a straight trouser, which is the version we would show it in. Over a shirt when the occasion asks, which a nylon bomber cannot carry and this one can. It is black wool, so it sits with tailoring rather than against it, and it needs nothing else in the outfit to be interesting.

Care

Wool wants brushing and airing far more than it wants cleaning, so hang it on a broad hanger with room around it, brush it down after wearing, and let a crease fall out overnight before assuming it needs attention. When it does need cleaning, use a good cleaner rather than a machine, and keep the ribbing away from heat, which is what takes the recovery out of rib. Our care guidance covers wool in detail.

Related pieces

The Black Flight Classic Bomber is the same pattern in a satin-surfaced recycled polyester. For wool at the tailored end, the Giacca Soft Soft Blazer, and for the same line without sleeves, the F/W 25 SL Flight Vest. Everything we currently hold from Rick Owens is listed together.