A blunt instrument for uncertain futures
The phrase lands:
…a blunt instrument for uncertain futures, with a feature set that is unorthodox, open-ended, and effective.
You think I, too, am a blunt instrument for uncertain futures, with a feature set that is unorthodox, open-ended, and effective. The images convey ideas of ruggedization, of flexibility, of surviving apocalypse. And plus, you already kind of act like you’re beamed in from another dimension all the time. Why not wear a jacket that does the same thing? And so you get curious.
The website offers almost nothing. There are images, too-small text (of course), a sorting mechanism. You hear they’re good at jackets. So why does the latest collection, one for fall & winter, have only two of them? You sort of figure out the numbers. “-GT” means GoreTex, so okay, this is the fabric. “J” means jacket. The numbers are probably some sort of issue number. So “J01-GT” is the first jacket they ever made, in GoreTex. “J91-WS” is the 91st, in something called Windstopper®. Fine.
The features. Gosh, there are so many features. A magnet for your AirPods. A built-in sling to wear the jacket around your body when you don’t have it on you. Zippers to nowhere. Zippers that defy themselves and explode at a tug. Diagonal and horizontal zippers that run the full length of the thing. There must be a purpose to each of them. One learns the jacket as if it is a new operating system. Jackets are important in your climate, where literally every possible temperature is represented, and you need a jacket of coat 8 months out of the year. “Operating system” feels resonant, not unreasonable. You gain intimacy with your jacket, since you’re wearing it all the time, multiple times a day, for months.
You wonder if the whole operating system is upgraded over time, or if there is just one thing you can get and call it a day. You wonder if there’s such a thing as “basic” or “minimal” Acronym. You just want something with enough zippers, and they offer no help.
There is no real help on the internet, either. Reddit doesn’t say much. There are YouTube reviews of older models, sure, but nothing with any real consistency, because it’s an $1,800 jacket and any reviewer who went the distance on Acronym would instantly bankrupt themselves. Acronym don’t do influencer campaigns or let you try stuff on for a while, because they simply don’t have to. They post a new thing, everybody buys stuff, moves on.
There are no third-party how-to guides for buying an Acronym jacket. You find one, presumably, in person, in a tiny boutique you’ve never heard of in a neighborhood you have absolutely heard of. You try it on, like it, pay full price, at the peak of the seasonal drop. This, of course, is what madness looks like. It is the exact opposite of how you buy clothes. It is what everyone does.
Eventually you find one in a store, try it on. It is more of a rain jacket. It runs a full size too large for you. Are you supposed to layer these? Does that mean you’re supposed to buy two pieces from them? They all cost as much as a laptop. That doesn’t make them undesirable, of course, just an investment, the sort that makes you exhale a woof from the diaphragm.
You only see one in person once, in Tokyo of course, and it happens in a split second, powerwalking through the busiest intersection on earth. The sling straps are a dead giveaway. He walks with the jacket open to the elements, long stride. Then he’s gone.