Rick Owens Collage Bomber

Almost everything else we carry from this house is smooth. Leather, cashmere, fine wool, coated nylon: four very different materials with one property in common, which is that the surface is a plane and all of the interest is in the cut. This is the exception, and it is the reason to stop on it. The cloth is worked so the surface breaks up across the body, taking light in patches instead of returning it evenly, which means the jacket reads as varied while standing still. On a shape as familiar as a bomber, that is where the entire design has gone.

Texture of that kind is easier to engineer in a synthetic than to find in a natural cloth, and that is the honest reason the fibre is what it is. A filament that has been extruded can be given a thickness, a twist, and a crimp deliberately, where a wool or a cotton arrives as whatever the animal or the plant produced. The trade comes with it and is worth knowing before rather than after. Polyester does not relax, does not soften into the shape of the person wearing it, and will never acquire the character a leather or a heavy cotton takes on over five years. A hide or a heavy cotton ends up a record of its owner. This will look the same in five years as it does now, which is either the point or the objection depending on what you want from a jacket.

Dust is the colour, the house’s warm grey-brown, which behaves as a neutral in daylight and looks like nothing else in a wardrobe of black. Between the colour and the surface, the jacket does one specific job: it adds texture and warmth of tone to an outfit without adding weight, and without asking anyone to make a decision on the way out of the door.

Why we selected it

We took it as the textured piece in a range that is otherwise smooth, and it is the one we reach for when an outfit is correct and inert. It goes over almost everything we carry, a bomber asks nothing of the wearer, and a bomber in a colour other than black is a considerably harder thing to find made properly than it should be. We would also rather sell one honest synthetic than behave as though the material does not exist. This is the version of it we would defend.

Materials and construction

One hundred percent polyester, made in Italy. Colour: Dust. Cut as a bomber, full through the body and drawn in at the hem and the cuff. The surface is textured rather than flat.

Fit notes

A bomber is full through the chest and closed at its edges, so it layers over a knit without adjustment and the length is fixed by where the hem sits. Polyester has no give and no memory of a wearer, so the fit you buy is the fit you keep: it will not stretch to accommodate and it will not go slack at the elbow or the back over a season. Take the size that clears whatever you intend to wear underneath.

Styling

Over black, where the Dust is the only colour in the outfit and should be. With a straight trouser and a low shoe or a boot. It is the layer to put over a plain knit when the rest of what you are wearing is already resolved and slightly dull.

Care

Have it cleaned rather than washed, and keep it away from heat, which is the one thing that damages a textured synthetic permanently: heat glazes a raised surface flat, and there is no brushing it back. No hot dryer, no iron on the face, and nothing left over a radiator. Our care guidance covers the synthetics in detail.

Related pieces

For the same shape in a satin polyester and in wool, the Black Flight Classic Bomber and the Classic Flight Bomber. For a coat rather than a bomber, the Turtle Coat, and in the same Dust, the Hoodie and the Brad Jacket. There is more on the house on the Rick Owens designer page. Everything we currently hold from Rick Owens is listed together.