Rough Jacket

A material exploration to transform the experience of damage in clothing.




Clothing sustains inevitable damage with use, but most clothing doesn’t welcome it. This jacket uses damage to document the life lived in it.

Concept

Put simply, this project is an applied material exploration in the realm of fabric alteration. Wear and tear are used as a decorative story-telling device in an effort to create a new experience around and relationship with damage, both long-term and short-term. As a wearer of lots of damaged clothing (some embarrassingly so), I find that I often grow to appreciate wear and tear, and sometimes can recall the specific moments in my life that created the damage. I wanted to create something that celebrates damage, offering a new lens through which to view the phenomenon.

Fabric

The shell consists of 3 layers of fabric, fused together with a minimally visible, heat-activated, double-sided fusible web. An off-white layer is sandwiched between two black layers, the innermost of which is a heavier fabric to serve as a durable base. The result is a material that behaves as a single layer, but when abraded, reveals layers of color, creating a permanent visual documentation of the damage the surface sustained. 

Design

Designing a long lifespan into a product demands a timeless silhouette. This jacket’s pattern lies somewhere between a varsity jacket and a pleated work coat - both staple silhouettes of their time.

The front of the jacket features simple pleats front and center. The back has a panel at the bottom, and two vertical pleats at the shoulder blades, providing effective allowance for motion while also resembling work wear, particularly hi-vis vests found in many industrial contexts.

Patterning

Extensive refinement of measurements was necessary to pattern the jacket from scratch. Measurements were taken on-body to achieve an effective shape.

The four-panel pleat designed specifically to accomodate this jacket’s heavy material allows the inner and outer layers to glide across each other smoothly without bulking or bending the shape of the panels on either side. One side of the pleat is essentially false, with a topstitch holding the layers in place. The other side hides a narrow panel of much thinner fabric that does all the bending and lets the other layers lie flat to the body in every state.

Detail

Left: the cuffs are snug, so they have a small zipper to accomodate a hand while putting on and removing the jacket. 
Center: the pockets also feature covered zippers to keep belongings safe.
Right: the aforementioned four-panel pleat in action. The left pleat is extended, while the right is not.

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