Rick Owens Heizer Mac Jacket

Square is the word to hold onto. Most jackets are drawn to follow a body, taking in at the waist and easing at the chest, and the shape they produce is a version of the person inside. This one is drawn as a rectangle. The sides run straight from the underarm to the hem, the shoulder is flat, and the result is a garment that reads as a shape in its own right and lets the wearer be the thing moving inside it. It is the most architectural idea in menswear and the hardest to get right, because a square cut that is even slightly wrong reads as a jacket that does not fit.

The details are correspondingly plain. A classic collar rather than a funnel. A centre zip rather than an offset one. And then the one piece of engineering: the chest pockets close on double-pull zips that lock, so the pull stays where you leave it rather than creeping open. In a cotton and nylon cloth, this sits between a jacket and a light coat and works for most of the year.

From the S/S 26 Temple collection.

This is the piece for the customer who wants the house's proportion without its drama. There is no asymmetry, no exaggerated shoulder, and nothing that announces itself across a room, and yet the cut is unmistakably from here. We also took it because a cotton-nylon jacket at below-the-waist length covers more of the Santa Fe calendar than a wool coat can.

The house's square-cut outerwear is the quiet counterpart to its bikers, and the Heizer is the plainest drawing of it.

Eighty-seven percent cotton, thirteen percent nylon, made in Italy, in black. Below-the-waist length, square fit, classic collar, centre zip opening, and Heizer double-pull locking zippered chest pockets.

A square cut has no waist suppression, so the fit is governed by chest and shoulder and the body will hang straight from there. Do not size up hoping for more room; the room is already there and a larger size mostly adds length. It layers over a knit easily. Cotton with nylon in it holds a crease less than pure cotton and has a slightly firmer hand, which is part of what keeps the square shape standing.

Over a fine knit with a straight trouser. The square line wants a straight leg rather than a taper. Because it is plain, it will carry a coloured knit underneath better than most of the outerwear here.

Wipe it, air it, and hang it on a broad hanger. A cotton and nylon cloth generally wants professional cleaning rather than a machine, and the zips should be closed before anything is done to it, which protects both the pulls and the cloth around them. Our care guidance covers the rest.

The S/S 26 Fogpocket Soft Soft Blazer and the S/S 26 Classic Biker Jacket come from the same season, and the Black Flight Classic Bomber is the bomber. Everything we currently hold from Rick Owens is listed together.