Winter Dragon Bomber Jacket 'Kanpu'

A silver eagle across the back of a navy velvet-look jacket, dragons down the sleeves

The eagle on the back of this jacket is embroidered in silver thread on a navy ground with the pile of velvet, and it is the bird of the earliest souvenir jackets, the one the American sailors asked for before they asked for dragons. It spreads its wings over a branch of pine under a cursive script, and two smaller eagles face each other on the chest, while silver dragons coil down both sleeves through clouds. The collar is a shirt collar rather than a rib, the front closes with snaps, and the cuffs and hem are ribbed.

It is the winter sukajan, because the velvet-look cloth is warmer than satin and the shirt collar closes against the neck, and it is the one in the range that looks most like the jackets in the photographs from the fifties.

The name, Kanpu, is the cold wind, the north wind of December, and the jacket is cut for it.

Every motif is embroidered, not printed, in dense satin stitch that stands off the cloth and catches the light as you move; that is the point of a sukajan, and it is why the jacket weighs what it does. The body is a velvet-look blend with a short pile and a light quilted lining, chosen because the pile holds silver thread better than satin and because a winter jacket should have some weight. The collar is a shirt collar, the cuffs and hem are ribbed knit, and the front closes with snaps. It washes cold, inside out, and dries flat; do not tumble.

Wear it over a white tee and white trousers, as in the photograph, or over a knit and dark denim in the cold, which is what it is for. It goes with navy and with black, and with nothing else patterned.

From across a street it is a dark blue jacket with a pale bird on the back. From close the eagle has every feather in silver thread, the pine every needle, and the dragons on the sleeves every scale, and the pile of the cloth shows between. It is the sukajan for the months the satin ones are put away.

The other version is the same jacket in black.

Sizes run from M to XXL. It is cut to Asian sizing and runs small, so take one size up from your usual. Between two sizes, take the larger.