Third up, and long overdue: the Mechanic Sweatshirt.
Available in chocolate, navy and heather. I went for navy since, well, it fits well with the rest of the blues I wear... Easy, ha!
Below, a closer look:
Sizing, soaking and shrinkage:
As a rule of thumb I take a Medium in all MFSC tops that won't shrink anymore, and a Large in the items that are unsanforized.
I did the same with the sweatshirt as it was preshrunk and intended as "stretch-to-fit".
When I received it, it seemed on the small side and when I first tried it on it felt pretty tight. After about a day of wearing and stretching and pulling it turned out perfect, perhaps even a bit on the big side if one would go for a typical slim "old fashioned" fit.
I'm mostly wearing it with a button up under it these days.
Christophe intended it to fit short and fitted and that it would eventually stretch and warp to the wearers body, with the ribbing stretched because of all the wear and pulling. (I imagine it to look not very much unlike the crewneck worn by Kerouac here.)
Pics:
Stamped cotton neck label and this seasons new rayon label, stamped with the items name and size. The rayon label is stitched to the front inside of the bottom ribbing. Not the most common place for a label, but it makes for a nice rectangular stitch on the outside front.
A closer look at the two pockets, the top one fits a phone or pack of cigarettes exactly (am not totally sure, but guessing that that's what these kind of pockets were originally intended for, seeing when they first started appearing on shirts a lot, is pretty much around the same time that literally everybody carried a pack around). The button holding the flap down is the same metal painted one as used on the Mechanics shirt.
The picture on the right also clearly shows the clever cutting of the tube to allow for extra room in the sleeve under the armpit. The whole body as well as the ribbing are a tubular knit.
As the ribbing is a single piece of knitted tube, which is used completely for the bottom ribbing, they had to manufacture 4 different widths of ribbing to accommodate for the 4 different sizes the sweat is available in.
The knit itself is a really soft and stretchy 100% cotton 3x1 knit, using two cream and one grey yarn creating this nice melange light grey.
Since the sleeve ribbing is cut out of a bigger piece it needs a seam, which at the end is bartacked for extra strength, as can be seen on the right picture.
The 100% cotton heavy weight fleece as seen from the inside. Extremely soft and fluffy!
The fabric is piece dyed and light sensitive, meaning that, while not indigo, it's colour will eventually change with exposure to sun, washes and, ofcourse plenty of wear!
I am really curious to see how this will look after a year of intense wear. A sweater with a well defined and somewhat contrasty wear pattern is something of a holy grail for me...
It has 100% cotton charcoal grey flatlocked seams throughout the whole garment.
The pic on the right shows how the ribbing is already starting to stretch and it also shows how well the fabric molds to the body and also holds that shape. Those are actually very well defined elbow creases for a sweatshirt, and from up close it even looks as if the "deep" of the creases is a darker blue than the fabric around it. But perhaps that is just my wishful thinking...
Available in chocolate, navy and heather. I went for navy since, well, it fits well with the rest of the blues I wear... Easy, ha!
Below, a closer look:
Sizing, soaking and shrinkage:
As a rule of thumb I take a Medium in all MFSC tops that won't shrink anymore, and a Large in the items that are unsanforized.
I did the same with the sweatshirt as it was preshrunk and intended as "stretch-to-fit".
When I received it, it seemed on the small side and when I first tried it on it felt pretty tight. After about a day of wearing and stretching and pulling it turned out perfect, perhaps even a bit on the big side if one would go for a typical slim "old fashioned" fit.
I'm mostly wearing it with a button up under it these days.
Christophe intended it to fit short and fitted and that it would eventually stretch and warp to the wearers body, with the ribbing stretched because of all the wear and pulling. (I imagine it to look not very much unlike the crewneck worn by Kerouac here.)
Pics:
 |  |
 |  |
The picture on the right also clearly shows the clever cutting of the tube to allow for extra room in the sleeve under the armpit. The whole body as well as the ribbing are a tubular knit.
 |  |
The knit itself is a really soft and stretchy 100% cotton 3x1 knit, using two cream and one grey yarn creating this nice melange light grey.
Since the sleeve ribbing is cut out of a bigger piece it needs a seam, which at the end is bartacked for extra strength, as can be seen on the right picture.
 |  |
The fabric is piece dyed and light sensitive, meaning that, while not indigo, it's colour will eventually change with exposure to sun, washes and, ofcourse plenty of wear!
I am really curious to see how this will look after a year of intense wear. A sweater with a well defined and somewhat contrasty wear pattern is something of a holy grail for me...
It has 100% cotton charcoal grey flatlocked seams throughout the whole garment.
The pic on the right shows how the ribbing is already starting to stretch and it also shows how well the fabric molds to the body and also holds that shape. Those are actually very well defined elbow creases for a sweatshirt, and from up close it even looks as if the "deep" of the creases is a darker blue than the fabric around it. But perhaps that is just my wishful thinking...
