Rick Owens F/W 25 Fogpocket Soft Blazer

This is the Fogpocket made in the material that tailoring actually wants. Virgin wool means wool that has never been previously used or reprocessed, which matters because the fibre arrives at full length and full strength: it presses cleanly, holds a shape, recovers from a crease overnight on a hanger, and does all of that for years rather than seasons. The cotton version of this jacket is a spring garment. This one is a jacket you can build a decade around.

The design is restrained to the point of severity. Single breasted. A narrow collar, which is what keeps the front of the jacket vertical rather than opening it out. And padded shoulders, which is the one place the house asserts itself, squaring the line above a body that is otherwise left alone.

It comes from Concordians, the F/W 25 collection, named for the town in the Veneto where the house's clothes are made, and it is the most sober thing in it.

There is a customer who wants one black wool jacket, wants it to be from a house that means something, and does not want to be looked at. This is that jacket, and there are fewer of them than you would expect. We also took it because wool tailoring is where a customer feels the difference between a good jacket and a merely adequate one fastest, and this one survives that comparison.

Fogpocket is the house's continuing tailoring line, and this is its most conventional expression, in virgin wool.

One hundred percent virgin wool, made in Italy, in black. Single-breasted, with a narrow collar and shoulder padding.

Wool has memory, so this jacket will settle onto the wearer over the first weeks and then hold, which is the opposite of how the silk and cotton pieces here behave. The padded shoulder means the shoulder line is set by the jacket rather than by you, so that is the measurement to judge in the mirror: if the shoulder is wrong, nothing else can be adjusted to fix it. It layers over a shirt or a fine knit.

Over a fine knit with a straight trouser, or over a shirt when the occasion asks. It is plain enough to be the neutral part of any outfit, which is what a black wool jacket is for.

Wool wants brushing and airing far more than it wants cleaning. Hang it on a shaped hanger, brush it down after wearing, let a crease fall out overnight before assuming it needs a press, and use a good cleaner rarely rather than routinely. Our care guidance covers the rest.

The S/S 26 Fogpocket Soft Soft Blazer is the cotton one, the Fogpocket Soft Soft Blazer is wool with elastane, the Giacca Soft Soft Blazer is flannel, and the JMF Neue Jacket is silk. Everything we currently hold from Rick Owens is listed together.