I've been looking for the perfect waxed jacket for about fifteen years.
This would be easier to admit if I hadn't already bought most of them.
Barbour. Filson. Flint and Tinder. Different weights, different linings, different colours. Jackets that looked perfect online but somehow weren't quite right once I owned them.
There has always been another one.
And another.
Lucy has stopped asking why.
My first serious attempt was back in 2011, when I bought one of the Levi's x Filson waxed trucker jackets. They weren't readily available in the UK, so by the time I'd paid international shipping, import duty and everything else involved in getting one across the Atlantic, I'd spent far more than was sensible.
But it was lovely.
A zip front. Moleskin collar. Poacher's pocket. Great colour. Proper waxed cotton.
There was just one small problem.
It was too big.
I hardly wore it and eventually sold it on eBay the following year, thankfully for a very good price.
The search continued.
There have been a lot of Barbours since then.
Probably enough to deserve their own article, so we'll leave those for another day.
Then came Flint and Tinder. I bought, I think, four of their waxed jackets through Huckberry in America, lined, unlined, wool lined, different colours and different sizes.
Again, import duty.
Again, anticipation.
Again... not quite.
They were good jackets. Some were very good jackets. But eventually every one of them ended up back on eBay.
What I've realised is that finding your waxed jacket is a bit like finding your favourite pair of boots.
Specifications only tell you so much.
Eventually it comes down to the one you actually put on.
Back to Filson
Sometime during the past eighteen months, I started looking at Filson's Short Lined Cruiser.
Filson has been making outdoor clothing since 1897, originally supplying prospectors heading north during the Klondike Gold Rush. The Cruiser name itself has roots in the timber industry, the men who travelled through forest sections assessing timber before the logging crews arrived.
In other words, these weren't originally fashion jackets.
They were workwear.
And you can still feel some of that in the Short Lined Cruiser.
I eventually ordered the Tin Cloth version in Tan.
Large.
Winter was approaching and, as someone who lives inconveniently between Medium and Large, I wanted enough room underneath for another layer.
When it arrived, I wasn't disappointed.
The 14oz Tin Cloth felt substantially heavier than most of the waxed jackets I'd owned before. Stiff, reassuring and extremely well put together.
It felt like something designed to get better rather than older.
The Tan was slightly more tan than I'd imagined from the photographs, but waxed cotton changes character as it's worn. Creases appear. Darker areas develop. Scuffs become part of it.
I expected it to become a favourite.
Except...
I kept reaching for my old Barbour.
There wasn't really anything wrong with the Filson.
I just didn't wear it.
And perhaps that's the most important test of any jacket.
Trying Again
My other colour choice had always been green.
So when spring arrived, I did something completely rational.
I bought another one.
This time I went for a Medium.
And immediately I liked it more.
With a T-shirt or lighter layer underneath, the Medium simply worked better for me. The shorter Cruiser shape sat nicely with jeans, the green suited the waxed cloth beautifully and the jacket began getting the wear I'd expected the Tan one to receive.
I still own it.
I still really like it.
At this point, I thought I'd probably found my Filson.
I hadn't.
Then Came the Dry Wax
Towards late spring I noticed another version of the Short Cruiser.
The Dry Wax Short Cruiser.
Same basic idea, but very different cloth.
Instead of the heavy 14oz oil-finished Tin Cloth of the lined jacket, the Dry Wax uses much lighter 7oz waxed cotton and has no lining.
I ordered a Medium.
The difficult decision was the colour.
I already had green. Blue didn't feel particularly summery. That left something Filson calls Quail Tan, which I wasn't remotely convinced about from the photographs.
I ordered it anyway.
And when I opened the parcel...
Oh.
That was the one.
The colour in person was exactly what I'd wanted.
More importantly, the jacket felt completely different.
Lightweight, unlined and surprisingly crisp.
Not soft exactly, the dry-waxed cotton has an almost freshly starched feel to it. There's a slight rustle and structure when you first put it on that I really like. It feels fresh somehow.
Where the heavier Tin Cloth feels like putting on a piece of equipment, the Dry Wax feels more like a crisp overshirt or lightweight jacket.
Jeans, T-shirt, Dry Wax Cruiser.
Done.
And increasingly that's what I wear whenever I'm leaving the house casually.
Tin Cloth or Dry Wax?
They're similar-looking jackets, but I don't think they're really competing for the same job.
The Tin Cloth Short Lined Cruiser is the more serious piece of outdoor clothing.
The heavy waxed cotton offers considerably more protection, there's a proper lining, and the whole thing feels built for cold weather, rain, wind and abuse.
If I were going somewhere exposed on a miserable Northumberland day, I'd choose it over the Dry Wax without much thought.
The Dry Wax is different.
It's half the fabric weight, unlined and inevitably doesn't provide the same feeling of weather protection.
But it's much easier to live with.
And that matters.
The Dry Wax is the one I can wear on a cool summer morning, through spring and autumn, and, with enough underneath, well into winter.
It's also the one I'm more likely to keep wearing when we stop somewhere for coffee rather than immediately taking it off and hanging it over the back of a chair.
In Simple Terms
And that final line probably says everything.
A Word About Size
I'm annoyingly between a Medium and Large.
Which size works best depends partly on my weight at the time and partly on what I'm planning to wear underneath.
For spring and autumn, when there's probably only a T-shirt or light shirt underneath, I prefer the Medium.
For winter layering, the Large makes more sense.
Having owned the Tin Cloth Cruiser in both sizes, I'd resist automatically sizing up simply because it's a substantial jacket. Decide what you're actually going to wear beneath it.
My green Tin Cloth in Medium feels much more like my jacket than the Tan Large.
The Dry Wax Medium is better still.
It has enough room to be comfortable without looking oversized, and although the cloth is crisp, its lighter weight makes the jacket noticeably easier to wear.
The Jacket That Should Have Won
There is one slightly ridiculous final chapter to all this.
After years of thinking that some combination of Levi's and Barbour might produce my perfect jacket, they finally did it.
A Barbour x Levi's collaboration.
I bought one online the day it was released. They sold out very quickly and, on paper, it should have ended the search.
Waxed cotton.
Beautiful lining.
Great collar.
Lovely stitching.
Zips.
Barbour and Levi's together.
Perfect.
Except the jacket is based around the Levi's Type II trucker rather than the Type III.
And for me, the Type II has just a little too much of a blouson shape.
Had they built exactly the same jacket around a Type III silhouette, this article might have had a completely different ending.
So close.
I live in hope.
The Levi's x Barbour is heading for eBay.
So is my Tan Large Tin Cloth Cruiser.
Which perhaps tells you more than another comparison table ever could.
The One Beside the Door
After fifteen years, numerous Barbours, several Filsons, four Flint and Tinders and an amount of import duty I'd rather not calculate, perhaps I've finally understood what I was looking for.
Not the toughest jacket.
Not the most waterproof.
Not the one with the greatest heritage story.
Not even necessarily the best-made jacket I've owned.
Just the one I reach for without thinking.
At the moment, that's the Filson Dry Wax Short Cruiser in Quail Tan.
It looks great with jeans. It's comfortable. It has that lovely crisp feel I wasn't expecting. It's light enough to wear for much of the year and roomy enough to layer when the temperature drops.
The Tin Cloth Cruiser is undoubtedly the more substantial jacket. My green Medium isn't going anywhere and, when Northumberland throws proper weather at us, there are plenty of days when it's the better choice.
But the Dry Wax is the one beside the door.
And yes...
I'm probably going to buy the blue one.
