A Cold War cape and a sheet of cardboard | From the workshop #13

Some months ago I sent out a request for input on what we might consider using the last metres of oilskin for. I received a lot of feedback, with one clear winner: Kohutt should make a poncho.

A poncho? The last time I wore a poncho was in my very early teens. I was standing in the rain at Phillip Island, watching Mick Doohan slide around the track on a two stroke motorcycle that was so fast & dangerous it should have been illegal (and later was). The poncho I was wearing cost $2 and was made of transparent plastic. That’s how much I knew about ponchos. But ok, let’s do a deep dive into ponchos and see what’s here? 

A few days later I received an email from Sergeant Hall, who had served in the British army and still had his original poncho from his service some 60 years ago. Hall offered the poncho to us as inspiration, driving down to the workshop to drop it off. Made from a densely woven cotton which felt like Ventile, a weather proof material common in applications like this before the advent of Gore-Tex, the poncho was heavy and well constructed.

The piece sat on a hook in the workshop for a couple of months, where I absorbed it via osmosis. As a kid, our house was full of books, but my dad was so busy working he had stopped reading, telling me he read via osmosis nowadays.

When Hugo started helping me out in the workshop, I knew it was finally time for the Kohutt poncho to be birthed. When not sewing, I’ve been building a house for several years... I’d recently laid heavy cardboard on the house floors to protect them during construction, and I left Hugo to start pattern making using the same heavy cardboard. Some samples later, I came back into the workshop to find the finished concept hanging on a hook, with Hugo’s name signed on the bottom corner. 

For the first time since some forgotten years by a racetrack in the 1990s, I put a poncho on and walked around the workshop. Hugo had done a fantastic job. For the next several weeks the prototype sat on the hook. The poncho spoke to me via osmosis as I walked around it many times a day making this and that. I love details. I love timelessness. Now, we add the details: Leather tags, leather press stud reinforcements, perhaps a wool collar. Hall’s original poncho had no hood. Why? Because the Sergeant was too busy wearing a bulletproof helmet during the Cold War. A Driza-Bone has no hood either. Why? Because when you’re riding a horse, you can’t turn around and look behind you or to the side without the hood blocking your vision. However, I am neither a Sergeant nor a horseman, yet I can appreciate their role: Let’s design a detachable hood. Hugo went back to the construction cardboard, we refined the details: eyelets, paracord, hood structure. It was all coming together. 

The detailed and finished poncho spent some more time on the hook, communicating to me via osmosis. I sent Sergeant Hall an email, letting him know our design was done, and in honour of his contribution the piece would be named after him. 

The Hall Poncho. A poncho with a detachable hood, made from the last Australian oilskin canvas, right here in Tasmania. Leather labels & wool details, press studs with leather backing reinforcement. Eyelets in the corners for pinning the poncho down as a groundsheet. Timeless and directly inspired by Sergeant Hall’s original British army cape, 64 years on and straight out of the Cold War. 

There is a string of finished capes sitting on hooks in the workshop now. We’ve been busy. These limited pieces are part of Workshop Edition 002. Workshop Editions are detailed and unique small batches coming out of our little workshop, which will not necessarily be repeated. There are 5 in each colourway: Deep Bronze and Deep Myrtle.

Special thanks to Sergeant Hall and my poncho models, Matt & Jess.