The Ship John Wills Jacket

When I was a student living in India I once had a very personal close encounter with a king cobra, an actual Ophiophagus Hannah.  It was, I kid you not, under my sink.  Lemme tell ya’, this was nothing like knocking on the glass at the San Diego Zoo trying to get the snake’s attention.  It obviously looked like a cobra to me and it was certainly big enough and scary enough to warrant the appellation “king.” But I later found out that the King Cobra is monotypic, it is the only one of its species and so not really a cobra but something else.  What appeared to me as a snake, a cobra under my sink right before my eyes was something more, even other. 

 

Don’t let appearances fool ya’.  Enter the Ship John Wills jacket.

 

I got my Ship John Wills when they announced increased production and availability.  It took about a year before it arrived.   Mine’s a V2, which has gone through some refinements in fit and construction.  I can’t compare it to the Version Ones, which I had gawked but had not trigger pulled for years before.

 

Some things in the heritage world are like trying to get Springsteen pit-tickets: not just expensive but sold out before you can hit enter.  I understand that.  Limited production plus high demand and next thing you know, poof.   Mark Elias and the Wills crew have a good thing and now they have a plan for you to get one.  Their webpage describes the protocol.

 

Honestly, I didn’t feel the obsessive urgency I can experience with Cool Stuff and I didn’t get the Wills because I have owned an excellent Filson Tin Cloth since 1993---my youngest daughter was in her stroller, I remember navigating a try-on fit and her too-brief napping, so I know my Filson is now 30 years old.  The Filson is an old friend, an excellent piece, and it has come through the years with me.  Would a Wills be redundant?  Would it be different enough to warrant the use and cost?

Following all waxed jacket instruction, my Filson has never been washed and though I’ve put it through weather and worse, I’ve not yet put it through refinishing.  Another reason I told myself not to pursue the Wills: I have been pleased with the Filson’s durability and evolution.  It doesn’t need help or cleaning, the patina works for me and the scruffy, sorta’ dirty bits convey the fiction that I somehow work for a living.  (My (dis)honest living has always been in words.)  Filson looks good, not gross.  Still feels a bit stiff, especially in cold weather, and when I first put it on but not like it was for those first few years.  It still sort of hangs on the body rather than fits.  In this respect it’s nothing like the Wills but more about fit later.

 

My Filson Tin Cloth jacket is unlined, was made in America as the tag clearly states, and fits like a straight to the sides, sorta’ boxy coat, not as short as a jacket coming to the just below the waist.  The closest model Filson currently shows is the Lined Tin Cloth Cruiser Jacket at $425, which for what it’s worth is imported and has a lining comparable (or perhaps identical) to the Short Lined Cruiser Jacket.  I have that shorty of far more recent vintage, and can’t say it’s better or worse in construction. The lining is a soft polyester twill, presumably tougher than a cotton or rayon and certainly allows for an easier on since unlined Tin Cloth is waxy and, have I mentioned? Still sorta’ stiff thirty years later noticeable.  The lining on the Shorty permits the kind of pockets you can’t have if the jacket is unlined.  But interior stitching isn’t great---neither as dense or as accurate as the Ship John, umm, not even close---and I doubt very much that it will hold up like my 1993 unlined coat, at least on the inside.

 

It doesn’t appear to me that Filson has changed their outer Tin Cloth fabric since my ’93 purchase, and I’ve got little say about their exporting its production except that it certainly hasn’t prevented Filson from raising prices to levels that are more fashion than work wear given what we are actually holding in our hands.  Filson across the board is no longer a value but closer to a luxury product: I rarely venture into cost versus worth judgments but to say that things are priced as sellers see fit and I decide how much I am able to spend if I really want a given item. 

 

Sometimes I feel genuinely priced out, other times I have to save up but the judgment made has to do with living with our choices.  Sometimes you just can’t deal with how something makes you feel--this is why I quit chasing expensive watches.  (As much as I love the watch, it’s just too awkward for me to have that kinda’ money on my wrist.)  Looking at the current Filson catalogue there are plenty of things that suit my tastes but are now priced closer to other brands that I would personally regard to be “superior.”  Filson is fine, other stuff seems better---all to one’s taste.

 

For an excellent comparison of waxed jackets including Filson check out the Stridewise website, if you haven’t already.  Nick takes it up with Rogue Territory, Huckberry, and Freenote, and points us to his buddy Troy’s excellent YouTube review of the Wills.  I think comparing the Wills to these other choices is like comparing a perfectly wonderful pair of Grant Stone boots to, say, Clinch or White Cloud.  They are all jackets; they are all boots but.  The but makes the difference---it's not really quality if what we mean to compare is perfectly good stuff, certainly not value in dollar cost butthat brings us to the Ship John Wills.  Will is the king cobra, not really a cobra.

 

“Next level” here doesn’t mean other things are inferior but the differences put the Wills in a different category.  The Wills is that monotype is to all other waxed jackets.  It looks like other cobras, is formidably frightening, has a neck-flap, makes eye contact, and otherwise puffs and hisses but it is something else.  This is the Wills compared to all other waxed coats I have seen or owned: it compares sort of, it could be construed as like the others but it is not.

 

Filson’s pitch reads: “Often imitated, Tin Cloth is the fabric trusted by outdoor professionals who depend on gear that withstands abuse in the harshest conditions. No other waxed canvas can match its durability, weather resistance, and legacy of dependable protection…Our Tin Cloth comes from England’s iconic British Millerain, pioneers of waxing fabric. At 14 oz. per square yard, Tin Cloth is twice the weight of its imitators, yet is not excessively thick.”

 

Hey Filson, ever had a king cobra underneath your sink?  Have you ever touched the 24oz plus wax Wills?  Perhaps this is why Filson adds the caveat that their fabric is not “excessively thick.”  The Wills is not just excessively thick, it is simply excessive.  What’s excessive?  The weight of cloth and its density with carefully, thoroughly slathered wax that goes deep into the nooks and crannies of this fabric in ways unlike any other wax cloth, the snaps snap close and require genuine effort as if the snaps are saying “you gonna do this, or not?” (add Stevie Van Zandt’s accent when you imagine the snaps talking back to you), and the unbelievably wonderful badass double zippers that works in both directions and call for yet another bit of hey you, pay attention, you’re doing something important here effort.   As far as I am concerned that is all excessive in a good way.

But you have to want to deal with what’s on offer here because it’s not like wearing any other waxed canvas and may not be like any other jacket except perhaps the thickest first-class horse leather that is usually quite stiff before it eventually molds to the body.  The Wills will eventually do that---mine is on the way to fitting me as if I had rhino or maybe pangolin skin, and that’s after a year’s reasonably steady use.  If you don’t want to deal with the feeling I am wearing the Wills then you might feel that the Wills is wearing you.  

 

However, that wasn’t ever my experience even when the jacket was new.  Why?  It’s because the reallyreally special sauce in the Wills is not just the material and astonishingly perfect construction, it is in the fit.  The Wills fits slim, close to the body, and if you size up to thinking you need to get more room then I think it will hang on you, you will feel the jacket as weighty.  But if you can fit it properly slim, as Ship John suggests along with all other reviewers I’ve surveyed, and if the numbers work for you as they do for me, then this very heavy, dense, stiff jacket once on the body feels perfect.  Less like armor and more like an armadillo.

Allow me another comparison.  I have a submarine-style Panerai watch from 2006: it’s 45mm and notoriously big, thick, oversized, perhaps now no longer much in fashion but I dig it, it’s my daily driver.  Hold the Panerai in the palm of your hand and you say, wow, that’s quite a heavy watch but put it on your wrist and the magic happens: it does not feel heavy, out of balance, or awkwardly large.  Now I may have just gotten used to it but that too applies to the Wills.  If make this jacket familiar, even before it molds entirely into your own pangolin-skin, it will feel right.  How long did this take?

The first time I put on the Wills its Gojira King of Monsters reputation was plainly manifest.  I had to pull down my sleeves, extend my arms, and zip the jacket.  When it first closed, it was body armor but not in a bad way, the jacket felt more comfortable zipped than unzipped and to this day I usually zip or snap it up at least a little.  When you snap the Wills closed it will not open under pressure or accidently, it requires a deliberate effort.  Somehow zipped (or snapped close or both) the weight falls off the jacket.  The stiffness, as I said, similarly recedes though it would be too much to say it evaporates or departs entirely. 

 

No, to experience the Wills is to know that you are wearing it as a feature not a quirk, there is no vagary here but rather a claim made upon your character.  If this suits you, you will know it.  If it doesn’t, the line to get one means you can easily resell without much worry for loss.

 

In a few minutes when the jacket itself warms to the body temperature, the wax on the outside magically softens some too or at least that’s the illusion, the slim fit takes on the sensation of a wholly natural carapace, and you stop noticing any particular effort in the wearing.  I am only self-conscious wearing the Wills now for the first five minutes: after that it's like the perfectly balanced big watch on your wrist instilling that perfect self-deceit that somehow all is right with the world and then once you come to your senses you will still say all is certainly right in this very proximate world of Wills jacketness.

I am about 5’10, likely about 170lbs, and everyday approach more of an oldman body now that I have a Medicare card: I am a true 40 in the chest with about an 18” shoulder measured across: the Wills medium is my perfect slim fit.

 

I can wear a hoodie or gansy sweater beneath it but the Wills is quite warm, so it would have be damn cold to want that kind of layering.  If you are out in the cold, layered up then the Wills will be warm but the wax canvas will likely feel pretty darn stiff---mitigated by the amazing fit that always makes the jacket feel comfortable, never bulky or cumbersome.

 

This jacket that is far, far, actually incomparably heavier than my Filson,  but it is not as unwieldy or ponderous as the much lighter Filson can still feel because the Wills fit is so superior: the placement of the armholes, the chest to the sides, the important gentle taper that removes the boxyness that is so endemically Filson.  Filson be nice but the Wills fit is consummate, indefectible, as close to utopian comfort as hobbit feet in winter. 

 

Wills is a relatively short jacket, so if you are long in the torso get the longer version.  If you wear a higher rise trouser then the short jacket covers all the necessary and makes you look a bit taller too.  I would compare the length to a traditional Type III denim, which is a bit shorter than what we see in current Levis jackets.

 

The lining is superb and strikes me as necesssry ‘cause you wouldn’t want this canvas on your skin.  It’s also tough as nails feeling cloth but super soft.  This makes getting into the Wills easier for sure.  Arms slide in as you it pull on and adjust to get the rear weight of the jacket to rest on your shoulders.  There is a useful inside pocket, not annoying deep so as to lose things and sure ly strong enough not to break through.  I rarely use it because it messes with the chest fit’s slim profiling.

The outside front lower pockets will take a bit getting used to because they are vertical, not sideways where you might reach for them the first time.  They are deep enough to hold stuff like the phone without fear of sticking out or falling and they are just wide enough to reach in easily.  I don’t have big hands but if you do I still think you will find the front pockets useful and navigable.  I never miss having the side pockets now.  With Wills you reach down and can easily walk with your hands in your pockets for those cold jaunts.

 

If you use either of the top pockets, be prepared to have another conversation like you must with the snaps, “you sure you wanna do this?” and not in a bad way but rather to put things to rights.  I rarely use the top pockets because they are only for small things and too much stuff makes the chest a bit noticeable.  If you are cool enough to smoke cigarettes then you can put your smokes here.  Your cigarettes will either praise the protection or cry out for the squeeze but once again there is enough room, not too much, not too little.  I stuff my phone in the top pockets getting out of the car, no problem but my iPhone is too big (it’s a smaller one) that I cannot not snap down the pocket.

 

Things stay put in the Wills: how it fits, in the pockets, everything is where it needs to be.  Ever sit in a brilliantly designed car that you have never driven?  You instinctively reach for the [insert the reached for thing here] and there it is. That’s what it’s like with the Wills pockets, snaps, and zipper.  Maybe those front pockets are like the ignition key on a Porsche.  It’s always on the left, and once you know that, you don’t think twice.  Wills front pockets are there for the reach.

 

The Ship John website strikes me as a wee bit confusing regarding ordering a new Wills.  It appears that books are open for delivery in January 2026, so about 26.5 months from this writing.  But given the current price of $598 with a $200 non-refundable deposit, I think the wait softens the blow---put $15 a month in a coffee can and when it’s time to pony up, you’ll be all in and it won’t feel like six hundred bucks for a work or at least a pretty casual style jacket.  I paid an earlier price (considerably lower) for my Wills and the current pricing makes it $173 more the current Filson Tin Cloth Cruiser at $425.   Again, the purpose of comparison here is ask myself if I had to choose, which jacket would I reallllly prefer and with the price difference significant, is it worth it, what would I do.

 

No question: Wills.  This is the king of cobras, a monotype that only looks like other waxed or canvas jackets, comparable but not really the same species.  Once you own one, you’ll see and if you are able to compare, as I have been lucky enough to do, owning Filsons, Belstaff, and Barbour waxys over the years, you’ll see what I mean.  Wills looks like a waxed canvas jacket but it is as sui generis as that cobra under your sink.

 

You can read more here:

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