J1B-GT, one month
I have written text already on the jacket, but I did not own one, which made the whole affair look a little like one watched a beautiful conversation in a bar from the side of the road. I stalked resale sites, waited, got one on deep discount, and now it is here, a J1B-GT in black. It is the J1A, their first & still most famous model, without the kangaroo pouch.
It comes with two hoods: one black, one hazard-orange. It comes with two sets of patches: one with the logo, one with magnets for AirPods that famously do not really work. I count eight pockets, but I’m sure there are more. I keep finding random zippers to nowhere, snaps that do not snap to anything obvious. The sling can be inside or outside; I wear it inside. It wears loudly, making a shoof shoof shoof as your sleeves rub up against your torso, a reminder. It is absurd, overcompensatory on all dimensions, and this is one of the more restrained models of Acronym jacket.
There are few longform reviews of Acronym jackets that talk about the lived experience of wearing them hard through a variety of conditions. Reviews are more like the aforelinked, focusing on features as a sort of how-to guide. This is useful, of course, since the jackets themselves come with no such guides, and Acronym’s website won’t help you either. The closest you get to first-party help comes from their dubstep-banger videos featuring the owner & lead designer futzing with all of the things in a futureshock kung-fu movie. But that is also not the felt sense of what it is to exist with an object, what comes up emotionally, what use is like, how it is received.
For example, there are two pairs of zippers along the upper chest that lead to small pockets that face inward. These pockets are terrific for holding one’s wallet, AirPods case, mask, and other small sundries. They, predictably, are tight zippers, since effectively all Acronym zippers are waterproof and the jacket is brand new. And while it’s sort of cool that two zippers allow it to open from either direction, in practice one has to pull on the zipper with their other hand, tugging the jacket along with it. You need two hands to work these zippers, and both of those hands should have gloves off, and I live in Chicago and schlep my stuff everywhere.
What’s the trade here? Make looser zippers and they might lose their water-tightness, which feels like a cardinal sin by Acronym standards. Change the layout and the jacket might not be able to sustain the same sort of anatomy as one gets with other pockets. Plus, the zippers look good where they are. Their jackets get upgraded over time with new materials, layouts, features. Mine is a riff on the 27th edition of this jacket. I’m sure they settled on none of this lightly. Maybe I’m the one who is doing it wrong. Maybe that’s why the aforelinked video exists.
Some more notes:
- Writ large, the jacket is tailored. Squint and it’s another black jacket. Look more closely, though, and you’ll find it is full of seams that help it flex & conform. The jacket’s tailoring is especially notable on the sides and on the sleeves, which give just enough around one’s arms to facilitate a broad range of movement. You don’t notice it until you realize just how much you’re supposed to be fighting with this thing, and every time you think you’re in for a struggle it just… moves.
- Unlike most jackets that zip from the top & bottom, here the lower zipper is a whole second zipper that moves slower and stays put, allowing you to sit down easily without bunching the rest of the garment. This is a small design detail that you aren’t thankful for until you get on any public transit, at which point it becomes indispensable.
- There is a third zipper for just the hood, allowing you to go out in the rain with almost no exposure. I haven’t had to use an umbrella since this thing arrived.
- There is a fourth zipper (I know) on the side, allowing you to tuck a sling under the jacket to protect it from the elements. I’ve written sling text before, but there’s no way the sling that I rock day-to-day will fit under this jacket. Fine.
- There are two “gravity pockets” on the forearms that are typically meant to fit cell phones, but in practice I forget to button the edge of the pocket that attaches to the sleeve, and whatever I throw in falls out quickly.
- The jacket works best in a place like Chicago with a down liner, and I’m not excited about spending $1,182 on Acronym’s. I use a fairly standard one from Uniqlo that I once bought on a cold-for-Tokyo day in Shinagawa Station. It works. It cost me $50.
- The main abdomen pockets are spacious, but the zippers are effectively placed in the middle of them. The pockets would have a higher effective carrying capacity and be able to insulate better if they were placed further to the sides of the person, and not close to the center as they are here. It might be nice to be able to hide objects on one’s sides, but in practice one goes fishing for the wallet, notebook, pen, iPhone, etc that get lost in those areas.
- The upper arm pockets are a wonder, a mildly stunning achievement. They tuck under a flap, hiding emergency stuff and other sundries. I keep a thumb drive & AirTag in one of mine, and my private fitness club’s garage door opener in the other.
- You’re supposed to be able to pull up on the main zipper to pull the jacket apart instantly. In practice, I have never gotten this to work.
In conclusion, I wore this thing walking through freezing, horizontal rain for an hour, took it off, bone dry. We could have ended the review there, but this is far more fun. I’ve set a calendar reminder to write some more text about the jacket once I’ve lived in it for a year. I’m sure it will be worth revisiting. Good things tend to be, you know?