Available for sale is this beautiful moleskin jacket.
By shearing and lightly brushing the tightly packed surface threads, manufacturers created a napped texture mimicking the soft, matte feel of a mole’s pelt. This process produced a remarkably wind-resistant, water-repellent, and tough material built to withstand the physical abuse of manual labor.
In the early 20th century and leading into the 1940s, black moleskin was the traditional choice for countryside farmers. When brand new, a black moleskin jacket was often pristine enough to double as a farmer's "Sunday best" church attire before being relegated to daily field work.
Black was also heavily adopted by heavy labor specialists, such as blacksmiths, stonecutters, and woodworkers, to mask charcoal dust and severe grime.
Following World War II, European factories mass-standardised industrial uniforms using cheap, easily sourced blue dyes. Production of black moleskin declined sharply, making genuine 1940s black variants immensely rarer than their blue counterparts.
