Note: this item was provided for review.
I am a little embarrassed to admit how excited I was to get the Injex Shank. One of my favorite jacket styles, and one of my favorite fabrics coming together in a really killer looking item. Essentially a very lightweight, but still substantial looking, jacket.
If wearing this on two 10hr flights is not testing enough, adding in the movement to and from the airport, then I don’t know what would be a better test. I fell in love, and I remain in love with this one.
Materials
This is cut from Outlier’s Injected Linen which is 59% linen, 41% polyester coming in at 170gsm. It’s warp knit in Japan, with weft-insertion, and flatbind. This garment is sewn up in the USA, Manhattan, more specifically.
To give you a sense of how light this is, a size medium comes in at 450G. Outlier uses flat black finished stainless steel shanks for the hardware. The jacket has two chest pockets, and two welt hand pockets.
It’s expertly done, looks like a jean jacket, wears like an unlined linen sport coat. Chef’s kiss.
Wear
The biggest issue I have with the warm months is that it’s hard to wear jackets and layers. I love wearing jackets for a variety of reasons, so I am always on the look out for light jackets I can wear in the warmer months. This might be the lightest of all of them.
This shank jacket, cut in what looks to be a Type III style trucker jacket, uses Outlier’s injected linen fabric to create a highly breathable jacket which can be worn in warmer weather without over heating. It really nails this.
From the pictures, you might assume that it’s thicker linen, but it’s the same 170gsm injected linen, knit the same way as the rest of the Injex garments, with only slight layering here and there on the construction of the jacket.
I like so much about this jacket that I genuinely don’t know where to start. It makes sense, I think, to start with the one thing I found less than ideal. On the back of the jacket, running from the placket to the hem is a single pressed pleat (this is where the hang loop is centered too). This pleat looks great, helps with a little movement, but it’s prone it getting itself out of sorts.
Post flight.
Linen is funny, because when you couple it with polyester it rumples and moves like linen, but doesn’t really crease like linen — that’s almost completely a benefit. Except you can crease it still, and after wearing the jacket during a cross-Pacific Ocean flight, I creased the heck out of that back pleat and it needed steam to fix itself. This is a minor thing, but something to keep an eye on and know. This is also the only true flaw I found with the jacket.
Let’s move over to the style. This is effectively what most would call a jean jacket, or trucker jacket in style. Like denim, linen is inherently casual, so it works well in this cut and design. It’ll pair with just about anything you want it too, and look pretty sharp — especially with the excellent colors Outlier has chosen for this.
Toss it on with jeans, linen pants, chinos — and head on out. Throw it over a T-shirt, or a polo — all good. I’ve been tossing this on every time the mercury is low enough to wear a jacket, and I’ve yet to feel out of place, but mostly I feel pretty great stylistically wearing this — it’s simply a very cool item.
Style isn’t all of this as the jacket nails wear comfort. This is the lightest wearing and most breathable jacket I own — that’s encompassing even outdoor clothing. Injected Linen is a spectacular fabric and works very well as a jacket. The cut and design keeps it looking warmer than it is, but you can see through this jacket when you hold it up to light.
I’ve worn this up to just about 85°F without issue over a polo or T-shirt. Air passes easily through it. It also does an excellent job at keeping light chills off your body from A/C or other systems of that nature.
An excellent warm weather layer, it also packs up pretty well for travel, giving you that rare jacket that looks amazing, performs well, but also packs down small enough to be a good add in. Even when carrying my bags and moving through airports, I found this jacket easy to move about it, and comfortable to wear.
The pockets are solid (though I would love a true inner pocket on the chest) and hold whatever I need well enough. The shank buttons look really cool in flat black, and function as good as they look.
Overall
This was one of those items where I could not wait to get my hands on it. I was worried it would look good, but would not actually be good. Would it be worth the asking price? The answer is a very clear yes: looks good, performs great, and a solid value. It performs better than I hoped — it is certainly lighter and breezier than you expect — and given the manufacture and materials quality, and design — it’s a very good value for the money.
I imagine the worst part of owning this will be stowing it away for next season.