This is the jacket Giulio Sapio built for his SS26 collection around a single material argument. A glossed leather so lacquered it reads almost patent in direct light, cut into a compact bomber proportion that sits at the hip and holds its shape without softening. The surface carries a near-varnished sheen while natural creasing runs through the sleeves and across the small of the back. The leather has memory. Every fold is a record of how the jacket moved.
Sapio spent 18 years inside Rick Owens commercial intelligence before launching his own label from a van in early 2021. That long inside-view of Italian production is visible in how the jacket is constructed: a sharp point collar in the same glossed leather as the body, two angled zip pockets slanting toward center, a centre-front zip that runs cleanly to the throat. The back panel is left entirely unadorned. All the visual argument lives on the front, in the way the surface catches and releases light as you move.
The tension sits at the hem and cuffs. Ribbed knit panels interrupt the lacquered body with a soft, textured counterpoint - matte where everything else is slick, yielding where everything else is firm. It is the only moment of release in a jacket built from one hard, glossed plane. Put it on and it anchors at the shoulders with real weight. The deep creases hold their shape, darker lines cutting through the sheen where the leather folds.