Occasionally a garment comes along which lampoons your sense of what a garment should be. Whittling your brain into a question mark, cleaving away rational thought and hosing it through a drain in the abattoir floor. This is such a garment. Histrionic, bewildering and mildly upsetting, this Kapital parka manages to capture the aesthetic appeal of a girl guide troupe frying in an asbestos fire.
There’s a great deal going on here. Principally it’s is a concoction of Kaptial’s proprietary distressed Century Denim and 60/40 fabric (the latter dating back to 1968 and standing as a weather resistant precursor to modern technical fabrics such as Gore-tex and Polartec Fleece) although that’s just the baseline. On board you’ll also find a zip front with press stud storm flap, a huge hood, a drawcord hem and velcro cuff detail, a pair of large zip-up pockets and masses of boro detail. And that’s before you examine the badges.
The assortment of vintage american scout badges is clearly the big draw here. Weathered, lived with and (presumably at some point) earned, these fragments of other people’s lives form a delicious, intriguing mosaic. Fonts, colours and design approaches clash, yet en masse it all makes sense. There’s a brutal beauty to this piece. A challenging wear no doubt. But it’s a wonderful relic, just waiting for you to add your own personal history.
