Sauce Origin Chased Silver 994-AG 19oz Jacket
This jacket has been on my radar for about 6 months, and after they restocked their size 42, I decided to pull the trigger and make the order. I'll admit that ordering from a Chinese selvedge denim company gave me some apprehension, but a few successful orders from Bronson Mfg., I had the confidence to give them a try.
Ordered of their website. Delivery took about 7 business days.
Normally I'm fairly vanilla as far as my denim goes: I like the uniformity of Iron Heart without any frills, but decided to do something very different for my jacket.
This called to me specifically because it answered the question of: what if you combined all the crazy ideas of denim and pushed them into a single garment? Enter the 994: a 19oz, silver buttoned, 87% cotton, 13% hemp, rainbow weft, modified type-1/type-2 hybrid.
The fabric: the denim itself has virtually no slub, very uniform, but the hemp makes the exterior very hairy and a few rainbow-coloured neps poke through the fabric. A combination of orange and yellow threads accent the jacket, which I've never seen before, but adds nice visual contrast. The interior pockets have something called "shell stitching" as an accent, and while not pictured, they are lined with an additional layer of canvas. I found the hemp was a bit prickly on initial wear, but they softened within a day.
The colour: depending on whether I'm outside, the time of day, or the amount of light in the room, the jacket itself ranges between looking very dark blue, to borderline black, almost as if it were overdyed. I like to play the long game for fading my clothing and think what it will look like 5 years in advance rather than a few months of wear, so the deeper dye is a plus for me as I don't want immediate vintage fades in 6 months. I wanna earn that s**t.
The interior is a rainbow weft, with green, red, yellow, and a light blue repeating throughout. It's quite beautiful and adds the slightest pop of colour on close inspection of the exterior.
Oh yeah, the interior placket has a white-blue selvedge line.
The weight: at 19oz, I was expecting this to feel thicker, but it's high tension weave reminds me of Iron Heart's 14oz denim. This means that while the jacket itself isn't very thick, but the whole thing feels crunchy and boxy as hell to wear and move around in—especially in the sleeves. I've been wearing it from dawn 'til dusk for about a week, and it's barely softened. Breaking this sucker in is gonna be a journey.
The hardware: as advertised, the jacket does come with twelve 925 silver buttons on the placket, cuffs, and side tabs. They are secured with brass backings, which have hourglass symbols carved on the back. Can't wait for them to start tarnishing.
There are two rivets, one on each cuff, that the company says is copper electroplated with a silver covering. They appear to be already oxidizing.
The interior comes with a fairly hearty leather patch with their logo and size on it. I do wish they would have added a hanging loop above it.
The fit: after measuring once, twice, three times using their website, and comparing to another jacket I own (a Freenote RJ1 in large), I settled on a size 42, with a bit of worry it might be too small, but the measurements were very accurate. I find the armholes very pleasant, slightly wider at the armpit and narrower at the cuffs. I've found a lot of Chinese companys have very skinny armholes that can pinch around the armpit, which this jacket avoids. I wish the sleeves were maybe 1/2 inch longer, but I find their length perfectly acceptable. The body is boxier than a type 3, but more fitted and narrow than a traditional type 1 or 2 jacket, which hits the perfect 'goldilocks' zone for me.
Note: any fit guys with large biceps might find this jacket a little tight in the arms.
Conclusion: Overall, I couldn't be happier with the jacket. The fit feels good, the fabric and stitching feels very high quality. The attention to detail from the chain stiched cuffs to liberal use of bar tacks show me that this is absolutely a premium line of selvedge denim. I'm excited to see how this thing ages and breaks in over the next several years and I'll likely be ordering from Sauce Zhan again (although I wish they would make their pants with a damn 34 inseam. Some of us Westerners have long legs).