SIGNALS

Welcome to the Saturday Signals, my attempt to package together some interesting bits from the past few weeks.

I. Serious Outerwear

I’m headed to Chicago this weekend, and since I am a man on the run from fires (with a poorly planned collection of escape clothing), I have almost nothing to wear in the frigid temps of a midwestern winter. I have received some clothing from friends like Glenn at Junior’s and the kind people of Sunspel, J.Crew, On Running and my buddies at Lusso—just to get me through the day-to-day, but I am in the need of some serious outerwear. That got me thinking about this Alan Paine Field Jacket I saw at Gamefish in Edinburgh last summer. Somehow I had managed to resist buying that jacket because I already had at least 5 Barbour jackets. But hey, now I’m back in the game with all of my possessions in limbo. I am seriously considering alternative Barbour options.

While snooping around for coats I noticed this insane Kamakura “survival jacket,” which hits traditional Japanese Barbour notes in the most interesting possible way. This reminded me of the golden age of Barbour collaborations with ToKiTo.

If you aren’t familiar with ToKiTo, it’s a Japanese brand created by Tokihito Yoshida who was collaborating with Barbour’s Italian licensee WP Lavori to create what are probably the most interesting pieces Barbour has ever released. This was heavy stuff in 2009 and 2010, when it was happening. I think the higher-ups at Barbour in the UK saw how these collections resonated globally and brought the program under the mother label for different markets beyond Japan and Italy.