I promised food, and we’ll get there, but one year later we must return to the jacket. For the first time, the jacket must be washed, but before that let’s talk about some nomenclature.

Like many luxury brands, Acronym has its own baffling & opaque in-house numbering system that, once briefly understood, helps you sort out what’s what. Their flagship J1A-GT can be broken down thus:

• J: jacket
• 1: the first model they made
• A: the first variation of that model
• GT: made with Gore-Tex

Fine. As mentioned, I own the J1B-GT, which is identical to the J1A but without a large kangaroo pocket on the front. As a result, it looks less bulky and more tailored. It also looks more like a jacket that an actual person would wear.

I live in a jurisdiction where it’s culturally important to pass undetected much of the time, making the J1B suitable to my needs. But the J1B is one in a line of many J1 varietals, the latest of which is the J1W-E, a widebody jacket (hence W) in microencapsulated nylon (hence E, whatever that is). Or if black isn’t your thing, maybe try the hi-vis Gore-Tex?

Acronym is not immune to seasonal trend, and so the possibility of my finding an original J1B in my own size is… increasingly slim. I don’t want a J1W-E, I want a J1B-GT, and I can’t believe I have ever been inspired to write a sentence like that one. So I’ve gotta enjoy this thing while I have it, and then if it ever dies off, I will 1) grieve, 2) waste half a day on a resale spree, and 3) buy something I hate, instead.

And so we turn to maintenance.

Right, washing

Last year, I mentioned that the jacket looked only two days old after a year. Now it is gray and a little faded, and so it must be washed.

But being made of Gore-Tex, it can’t just be washed. There’s a whole process. Multiple specialized detergents. The whole thing takes a few hours start to finish, and then it takes a day or two to air-dry fully.

First, I have to remove everything from the pockets, which means I have to remember where all of the pockets are. There are almost a dozen pockets on this thing, some of which are hidden. Then I have to remove the hood & back sling, and then I have to figure out which of the specialized washes in my laundry room will actually work for this thing. I also have to investigate whether I should wash it with the zippers open or closed. Only then do I wash it. This all requires concentrated effort – unlike the rest of my laundry, which I have on autopilot.

Actually first, I have to find the right time to wash. It’s below freezing out, so I have a rare window where I will definitely not be wearing the jacket. Plenty of time for it to dry. Perfect.

Because

The jacket must be washed because the jacket was absolutely flogged over the past year. Wore it over 100 times? Wore it on a bike, wore it on the bus, wore it with 50 pounds of vegetables on my back, wore it in 110º, wore it with layers underneath in 20º. Wore it to shows, slung on my shoulder. (I still have no idea how you sling both straps over your whole head.) Wore it gardening. Wore it to yoga. Wore it places where you flatly never expect Acronym to be worn.

It blocks wind better than anything I’ve used, and it repels rain better than anything I’ve used. Yes, there are other Gore-Tex jackets on the market, and most of them cost less than this. There are also jackets that use natural materials and are constructed to last for much longer. I could probably do enough with those. But I also live in a place that’s rather famously known for extreme weather, and sometimes you end up in a situation where the rain is literally horizontal and you still have to get to the bus. For those, the zipped collar and long hem are vital.

Many parts of the jacket remain baffling. With an object as intimate as a jacket, baffling & unnecessary features only become more baffling & unnecessary over time. The cell phone holsters are still there, as are the little magnets that are supposed to hold your AirPods but do not. (They don’t hold the latest Pro version, either. I tried.) The breast-pocket zippers only work in one direction if your arms are as long and limber as mine are. But ultimately, with an object like this you just aren’t going to use everything. And maybe future iterations of the J1 fixed some of this stuff? I don’t know because I spend my days gardening in an Acronym jacket, not poring over Acronym’s proprietary language or reading techwear forums. I am also not buying more Acronym jackets. You clicked the aforelinked. You know how much they cost. It’s kind of ridiculous to own one of these in the first place, but I suppose that’s also part of the point.

So then we pray for durability. We pray that the zippers hold up. We hope the seams don’t disintegrate. We ask how many more years this thing has.

After washing the jacket, I tested it by, uh, flying to Portugal, where it proceeded to rain all weekend. Zip twice, throw your hood up, and go. My luggage got wetter than I did.