Planet Earth Suit Jacket 2

If Tenet and Inception are anything to go by, then we’re still going to be wearing suits in the future – they might just need to be able to cope with time travel and dream hijacking, as well as going to the office and out to dinner. So our Planet Earth Suit 2 is an ultramodern, completely weatherproof take on what we used to call a suit.

While our Planet Earth Suit 2 is built from ultrafine Merino, you’d never know it. Merino has its roots in classic suits, but we’ve completely transformed how the wool feels and what it looks like. This is Merino transformed into a smooth, minimalist, high tech material. 

To build the Planet Earth Suit 2 we’ve retained and enhanced all the high performance properties of Merino – it’s still water resistant, highly windproof and breathable, while killing bacteria and regulating your temperature – but we’ve made it completely smooth and soft against your skin. And we’ve cut it into a design that will take you from a plane to a boardroom, to a lunch, to a mountain.

The jacket is built with Merino wool engineered using Optim™ spinning technology. The fibres are pre-stretched, spun into yarn and woven into fabric, before a wet-finishing process is applied that makes the fibres contract and the weave structure tighten. The result is a super-dense and tightly woven fabric that’s 5x more wind resistant than normal, and can last half an hour in the rain before it even gets damp.

It’s not just the re-engineered Merino that makes this jacket so comfortable and adaptable, but the way we’ve constructed it too. It’s a soft tailored jacket, which means unlike more traditional suit jackets we’ve not built in any padding at the shoulders or in other areas. This unstructured shape makes the jacket understated and easy to wear anywhere.

We’ve designed the collar so that you can wear the jacket as a normal blazer, or as a stand collar jacket. To wear it like a blazer you can fasten it with any of the lower three centre buttons, keeping the lapels folded down. But you’ll also find two extra buttons concealed behind the lapels that let you convert them into a high collar, by simply flipping them up and buttoning the jacket up to the neck.

We’ve built the sleeves with a two-piece construction that follows the natural shape of your arm, and there’s a back vent at the hem to help you move freely too. The cuffs each fasten with two metal snaps that let you quickly create space around the wrists if you need it.

Both the jacket and pants are super easy to fold and pack down into a bag for travel. At the other end of the journey you can simply pull them out the bag, shake them out and throw the suit on, making it perfect for the times when you need to travel light. The jacket is incredibly smooth and soft against your skin, so won’t scratch you or itch like wool can. And Merino is also naturally elastic so it’s not going to create any resistance.

We’ve cut the jacket and pants so that they’re relaxed enough to feel comfortable all day, but smart enough for when you’ve got a dress code to meet. The jacket is fitted but never restricts you, and the pants come with a slight taper towards the bottom of the leg. 

It’s not sweat that smells, or even the clothes themselves, it’s the build-up of bacteria on the surface of the clothes. Merino is naturally odour resistant – odour molecules are absorbed and locked into the centre of the fibre of the Merino so you simply can’t smell them. They’re then released when you wash the jacket.

We’ve replaced the traditional ‘pocket square’ chest pocket you find on suits with a minimalist angled zipped pocket. The zipper is completely concealed behind the fabric so that only the puller is visible. There are two more hidden zipped pockets lower down at either side of the jacket. And there’s a fourth pocket inside on the left chest. It fastens shut with a loop and button closure.

Merino sheep are bred to survive scorching summers and freezing winters, so the fibres of their wool respond and adapt to the conditions you find yourself in – either trapping or releasing heat depending on the temperature and humidity of your skin. Merino wool has to keep sheep cool even when the temperature goes over 30°C, so the Merino fibre naturally absorbs the moisture from sweat and disperses it to start releasing heat.

Each of the centre buttons is reinforced by a backer button underneath for strength. And all of them are made from bioresin – a natural, non-toxic and water-based material we’ve produced by combining plant and vegetable waste with a polyester resin used by the aerospace industry.