Jackets & Coats

A wool jacket keeps you warm. An embroidered one tells you where it comes from. This page is for the second kind — structured outerwear built for cold months, with hand-stitched detail that a plain wool coat doesn't carry, and a guide to help you tell a corset jacket from a frock coat before you buy.

Wool, Velvet & Hand Embroidery — What Makes Them Different

Wool does the practical work: it holds heat, resists creasing, and gets better with age instead of worse. Velvet does something different — it catches light unevenly depending on how the pile falls, which is why the same jacket looks slightly different indoors and out. Neither fabric needs embroidery to function. It's added anyway, by hand, because a plain wool jacket and an embroidered one send different signals — one is outerwear, the other is a piece someone made a decision about.

Look at the "Aneta" corset jacket: the wool carries the structure, but it's the tailoring — not a print — that gives it its corseted shape. That distinction matters more than it sounds. A printed or heat-pressed pattern sits on top of the fabric. Hand embroidery is worked into it, thread by thread, which is why two jackets from the same design are never perfectly identical.

Jackets, Coats & Corset Vests — Find Your Silhouette

Three silhouettes cover most of what "outerwear" means here. Each one solves a different problem, and knowing which is which saves you a return.

Structured Jackets & Corset Styles

A corset jacket, like "Aneta," is built close to the body with a defined waist — it's a jacket doing the job a bodice usually does, over a blouse or a fine knit. This is the silhouette to reach for when you want shape, not volume. It's not a coat substitute; wear it as the outer layer on a mild day, or as a structured mid-layer under something heavier in deep winter.

Long Coats & Frock Coats

The "Louisa" frock coat is the opposite instinct: a longer, straighter cut with less shaping at the waist, closer to a 19th-century riding coat than a modern trench. Frock coats read as more formal than a jacket and layer easily over a dress or trousers without adding bulk at the hip. If you're deciding between the two silhouettes, the corset jacket adds shape; the frock coat adds coverage.

Knitted Vests & Layering Pieces

The sleeveless knitted vest — like the "Ilya" waistcoat in pure wool — is the piece most people underestimate. It has no sleeves to bunch under a jacket, which makes it the easiest layer to add or remove as the temperature shifts through the day. Wear it over a blouse alone in early autumn, or under a coat once it's properly cold. For something with more decoration, the embroidered knitwear collection covers the sweater side of the same idea.

How to Style Folk-Embroidered Outerwear

The easiest mistake with embroidered outerwear is treating it like a plain coat — buttoned to the top, worn alone, done. Let the embroidery show instead. Wear the corset jacket open over a simple dress so the waist shaping and the stitching both stay visible, rather than closed and hidden under a scarf.

Layering is where these pieces earn their keep. A knitted vest under the frock coat adds warmth without adding bulk at the shoulders — useful once a wool coat alone stops being enough. For an evening version of the same idea, our embroidered velvet jacket, from the Dresses & Velvet collection, swaps daytime wool for something dressier without changing the silhouette logic.

None of these pieces are decoration for its own sake. Read more about how the wool itself is chosen before it ever reaches an embroiderer's hands.

Fit, Sizing & Care

Wool moves less than knit, so a corset jacket should feel close but not tight across the shoulders on the day you buy it — it won't stretch to fit later the way a sweater might. If you're between sizes on a structured piece, size up; a frock coat or jacket that's slightly loose still hangs correctly, a tight one doesn't.

Brush wool jackets after wearing, before hanging — this lifts dust out of the pile before it sets in. Store on a wide hanger, never folded, so the shoulders keep their shape over a season in storage. For anything beyond a light surface mark, take the piece to a dry cleaner and mention the embroidery specifically; standard solvents can affect embroidery thread differently than the base wool.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the embroidery hand-done or machine-made?

Hand-done. Every embroidered motif on our wool and velvet outerwear is stitched by hand, which is why the placement varies slightly piece to piece — that's the process, not an inconsistency.

How do I care for a wool jacket?

Brush it after wearing, store it on a hanger rather than folded, and take embroidered pieces to a dry cleaner who can work around the stitching rather than just the wool.

Do these run true to size?

Structured pieces like the corset jackets run close to the body — size up if you're between sizes. Frock coats and knitted vests have more ease built in and generally follow standard sizing.

Ready to see the stitching up close? Browse jackets, coats and vests — the embroidery reads far better in person than in a photo.