Making the Mocha Varsity Jacket

Four samples, eleven months and one shade of brown we couldn’t stop arguing about. This is how our first varsity jacket was made.

Couple in mocha varsity jackets with cream sleeves and matching brown pants — Front: a chenille 5 on the white leather sleeve.

THE PIECE

Our first varsity jacket took longer than anything we’ve made. We wanted the weight of an old team jacket, a brown like coffee with too much milk, and a back you’d recognise from across the street.

This is how it went from a page in a sketchbook to the jacket in these photos, with every wrong turn left in.

One wool body. Two leather sleeves. Four rounds of sampling before it felt like ours.

BODY: Wool melton
SLEEVES: Leather
SAMPLES: 4 rounds · 11 months
EDITION: 150 pieces

01Sketch

It started with the back. Before we knew the body, the sleeves or the fabric, there was a smiling XV in a circle, drawn over and over in the corner of a notebook. The jacket was built around it.

The first flats were drawn by hand: a dropped shoulder, a boxy body that stops at the hip, and two-stripe ribbing at the collar, cuffs and hem.

Pencil sketches of garments and hangers on paper, with pencils on the page — First silhouettes, pencil on paper. Autumn 2025.

Technical flat of the Mocha Varsity Jacket, front — Flats: rib collar, chenille 5, leather sleeves, welt pockets, the XV smile on the back.

Technical flat of the Mocha Varsity Jacket, back — Flats: rib collar, chenille 5, leather sleeves, welt pockets, the XV smile on the back.

02Fabric

A varsity jacket lives or dies by its wool. We tested melton from four mills and wore each sample for a week before deciding. The winner is heavy enough to hold its shape and soft enough to wear over a tee.

The sleeves are leather, cut in white so the brown body reads even deeper.

Hands choosing between fabric swatches spread across a table — Choosing between swatches from four mills. Swatch 03 won.

03Sampling

Four samples in eleven months. Each one fixed something the last one got wrong, and each one went home with someone on the team for a week of real wear.

NOV 2025
Sample 01
Wrong brown. Too red in daylight, too flat indoors.
JAN 2026
Sample 02
Right brown. The sleeves pulled at the elbow, so the pattern was recut.
APR 2026
Sample 03
The XV smile moved from print to chenille, redrawn at 24 cm.
JUL 2026
Sample 04, Prototype approuvé
Approved. The jacket in these photos.

“We kept changing the brown until it matched the jacket in my head.”

Tomi Ajayi, founder

04Production

Production ran as one small batch, so every jacket could be checked by hand before it left the workshop. Each one carries its edition number on the inside label.