Fishing jacket in cotton cambric in dark navy

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£480.00 — ex VAT

Jacket with detachable hood, made in London, with lightweight (6oz) weatherproof cotton from Lancashire, and horn buttons from Midlands.

Sizing

The fishing jacket fits true to size. The mannequin here is as standard a 40 chest as ever there was, and is thus wearing size M.

XS S M L XL
To fit chest 36 38 40 42 44
Pit-to-pit 20 21 22 23 24
Shoulder 18 18½ 19 19½ 20
Back length 27¼ 27¾ 28¼ 28¾ 29¼
Sleeve from centre-back 34¼ 34½ 34¾ 35 35¼
The fishing jacket is a fairly short jacket which has a detachable hood and is about one-third pockets (on which more later). Handy for casting rods on riverbanks, sure — keeping out the rain and offering storage much and manifold — but no less adept at reeling in kind words the rest of the time.
The hood on the jacket is detachable: fixing to the back of the collar-stand with the help of five buttons stationed at regular intervals.
The collar is cut with the single express purpose of fully encircling the neck: gently caressing the back, then the sides, then swooping cleanly round the front to cover the throat and jaw and lower chin at just the right distance to shield them but never niggle them — then be held in place with a little button.
The hood covers all parts of the head save the face — such as is the least requirement for a hood — and, with a shapely three-panel construction, hugs the crown and curves cleanly around the forehead and temple. It also, importantly, is doubled layered, making water ingress nigh-on impossible.
It can also be adjusted, the hood, with the assistance of a little tab around the back. Its connection to the body of the hood is sheltered from precipitation with elementary origami.
You can't spell detachable hood without detach, and the jacket loses none of its charm when the hood is taken away. The collar, made in warming corduroy, can sit obediently down, with a subtle, pleasing roll, or up, or halfway up and halfway down, and every infinitesimal degree in between.
North, south, east, west — the pockets span all directions, from front seam to front seam, all the way around the body, and from waist all the way down to hem, with no real-estate spared. Those at the front are each covered with large flaps, and at the back, the two pockets are covered by a really large flap.
The pockets on the jacket have an accordion-like quality to them. They sit neat and tidy when empty, folding in on themselves with silent potential, but will expand outwards in dramatic (for pockets) fashion — into song they burst like the aforementioned accordion — if filled with hand or object.
The size of the pockets would be for nought if they were prone to ushering in the elements after a week of wear. The flaps, however, are as firm as they are sizeable, and moreover have a hidden button-fastening built into their undersides. None shall enter nor exit without full written permission.
The armholes on the fishing jacket are very slightly lapped, which gives a subtle but definitely-there depth at the shoulder. Not just for show, either: the lapping serves to shield the seam from the outside world and all its watery woes, and is a trapping of thoughtful outdoors jackets since on or around the year dot.
The buttons on the jacket are horn, dark in colour and matte in finish. Because each is a thing of nature, they each differ subtly in shade and marking, one to the next. The jacket has a fly front, with the front buttons hidden away when fastened, making them unlikely to catch on fishing hooks and other everyday snags.
The pockets on the inside of the jacket are less assuming than those outside: there's a chest pocket on the left side as worn, and then two more pockets of the same jetted design and construction further down, on both the left and right side — one of which is surely a candidate ideal for safekeeping a hood.
Crisp, light cotton from Lancashire, this, with a water-repellent finish. It has a very high number of fine threads per inch, so is smoother, stronger, and, crucially in this case, better in the rain than your average cotton. It is highly breathable, too, and is highly adept at wicking moisture away from the body.

As worn

The gentleman here has a chest of 38, and seems very happy to be wearing the jacket in his usual size of S.
Same man, same jacket, same size — only it's not the same jacket, of course, because of the colour.

Makers of

The jacket is made at an outerwear factory in London: the best, many agree, in the capital. The jacket is cut by the hands of a cutter with some 30 years in the trade, and sewn by one of four seamsters whose meticulousness and pursuit of perfection would be caricature were the end results not always so good.
The cloth is supplied by a mill in east Lancashire: in a region of the country which was once red-brick cotton-mill chimneys as far as the eye could see. More or less the last of its kind, the mill has forgotten more about cotton than most will ever know — a fact borne out by the quality of its work.
The horn buttons were cut, shaped, and polished by the last such factory in Britain (now defunct). It was part of a tradition in the Midlands first linked to the meat industry of the 18th century. "It is no easy task," said William Hutton in 1780, "to enumerate the infinite diversity of buttons made in Birmingham."

So they say

First, a few words about the fishing jacket that I've been wearing the last few weeks. It's an absolute joy to wear, and I greatly enjoy the design, which is a perfect mix of functionality (big pockets, rain protection) and style / originality (massive back pockets, the interesting collar).

So says a man in Portugal about his fishing jacket in cotton cambric in March 2023.