2020 Coats & Jackets
The Shearling Vest
By Drake's
Jul 13, 2022
Our new Shearling Vest is a substantial piece of outerwear, with a suede outer face, and a toasty shearling interior.
When Bill Callahan sang about a shepherd in a sheepskin vest (on his excellent 2019 album of the same name), was this the vest he had in mind? Most likely not, but nevertheless this is a garment fit for a man of Callahan’s rugged credentials: a drifter, a drover, and a dreamer.
It matters little if you’ve never ridden a chestnut colt across the American interior, or pensively plucked at a nylon string guitar, our shearling vest is perfect for desk jockeys and actual jockeys alike. It’s also no issue if you’re more likely to wear this for a stroll around town than a voyage into the wilderness: it has a dash of what our friend Bruce Boyer might call urban élan.
At its core, this is a deceptively simple piece of clothing. Cut from a premium slice of heavyweight suede, we have kept the material’s reverse shearling side intact, which acts as a toasty lining to sit close to the body and preserve warmth. Angled handwarmer pockets grace the garment’s front, and it fastens with a two-way zip.
As these images illustrate, the Shearling Vest can be worn in a number of ways: under an overcoat, over a tailored jacket, or as a standalone piece of outerwear. This makes it indispensable if you live in a climate that’s as unpredictable as a British autumn: like early spring one day, and late winter the next.
It’s impossible to know what Mr. Callahan envisioned when he conjured the image of a sheepskin vest in his mind’s eye (even by the standards of enigmatic singer-songwriters he is something of a closed book), but I would like to think it looked a little something like this.
