This the ‘Meeting Jacket‘ by Japanese brand Amachi. I like the idea of a jacket specifically designed for meetings, although I’m not sure this would suit the kind of meetings I have to attend.

I tend to meet a lot with technology clients looking for creative digital solutions. If I turned up in this I expect they’d consider me suspiciously arable, a bit of a straw-chewer.

That said, it’s an interesting, albeit rustic piece. Pity I’m not in business with sheep castrators or Witchfinder Generals.

With its giant open collar and chunky button fastening, there’s certainly something of the herdsman about this. Or at least a herdsman though an avant-gardist’s lens. Amachi is after all another one of those brands that mixes up the aesthetics of performance gear and the traditions of Japanese dress, then invites you to peer at it through a rhomboid made of huh? And it’s always topped off with a giant straw hat — because why wouldn’t you.

Course, such balloon-panted antics can come across rather costumey. But if you can view the wearing of such garments as fun and experimental, rather than mortifyingly affected, you’re talking the first step into a bigger world. Sure this jacket is oversized, looks like it’s made from itchy wool and features unexplained orange highlight around one pocket, but when was that a reason not to buy something? If anything such details make it more inscrutable and thus envy-making.

Love the big front pockets on this and the chunky central pleat on the reverse. For me the stumbling block is the peasant collar. I’ve tried the smock lifestyle on for size a few times. I’ve bought the odd boat neck piece, stuck it in a drawer and then never pulled it out again. So, in summary, I’m flippantly recommending this to everyone while remaining on the fence myself.

Meeting adjourned.