The Vintage Rolex of Camouflage
One Jacket Reigns Supreme
Camouflage is trendy with the cool kids these days. It’s hard to go anywhere without seeing it worn as a style piece. As all trends do, it too will eventually go dormant again at some point. But this Jacket is special, and has successfully transcended all trends. This is about a piece of clothing that represents far more than what you’re looking at.
I first started uncovering what was going on with “The Jacket” about 5 years ago. My buddy Austin kept telling me how I should be wearing Mossy Oak, and I didn’t really get it at first. I then began discovering a treasure trove of vintage camo on various underground camo websites (yes, it’s a thing) that hadn’t hit the mainstream yet. I sent a photo of The Jacket to Austin. “What’s the deal with this one? Super cool”.
”Hahah. Good luck. You and everyone else,” he said.
I suddenly had to find one. And I now had to also figure out why this particular Jacket was so sought after. There are hundreds of other vintage camo jackets out there - but something was unique about this one. While going down the rabbit hole of The Jacket, I started to get really fascinated with the subculture of wild turkey hunting in the South, that I had no idea existed before. I spent weeks trying to understand it. As someone from the other side of the country, this was an unfamiliar world. Guys who wore The Jacket were dedicated wild turkey hunters - that was obvious. So down the path I went of trying to learn why somebody would care so much about hunting an oversized bird that prefers to walk over fly, sleeps in a tree, and has “a face only a mother could love,” as my friend Brad likes to say.
The wild turkey world was a niche with a strong community and I wanted to know everything about it. As I looked through hundreds of turkey hunting photos one Spring, I noticed that people who knew what they were doing seemed to be choosing their camouflage very specifically. They were wearing Mossy Oak’s Bottomland or Greenleaf patterns. And as expected, some of them were donning The Jacket. I read Col. Tom Kelly’s Tenth Legion, watched a handful of old school Mossy Oak VHS videos from the early 90s, and was eventually invited to West Point, Mississippi by Daniel Haas to visit Mossy Oak and learn about it first hand. I was beginning to understand what was going on here.
At the Haas Family cabin in Mississippi, The Jacket was draped over a rocking chair on the porch. Inside the foyer, there was another one on a coat rack, as if sitting in the bullpen waiting to be tapped for the next mornings hunt. Each of them had oversized vinyl Mossy Oak labels - one black, one white. I’d seen dozens of photos of The Jacket, but had never seen those labels before. It was clear that these ones were especially rare and remained in the family for a reason.
The Jacket was originally called “The Deluxe Woods Coat”, and it’s one of the first hunting jackets that Mossy Oak made, whose tagline was born as “The First Perfect Camouflage.” Before designing the Woods Coat, Toxey Haas of Mossy Oak created ‘Bottomland’ - his big-break camo pattern, in 1986. He quite literally grabbed a handful of sticks, dirt, and leaves and then had it painted into a camo pattern. He wasn’t trying to be fashionable, he was just a die hard wild turkey hunter and he wanted to be invisible to turkeys. There was nothing else on the market that cut it so he made his own. And the pattern has remained essentially the same since then. It hid him from turkeys in the 80s, and it is still works in the woods today. It’s a bad day to be a turkey when there’s Bottomland being worn under a tree, unless your turkey calling sounds like mine did 5 years ago….in that case, every gobbler in town will run to the next county over before they see you.
Today, the original Bottomland pattern has a cult following unlike anything else I’ve seen in recent years. When Mossy Oak drops special Bottomland products, it’s more akin to a Supreme drop in 2006 when there were lines around the block, than a new piece of hunting gear.
There’s even a fast growing reseller market that is dedicated to vintage camo, and the old Mossy Oak pieces always sell for a premium over the other stuff. Bottomland is the original pattern and generally most loved, but there are a handful of other classic Mossy Oak patterns as well that are all great in their own ways. Over recent years I’ve somehow amassed a closet full of old vintage Mossy Oak - I keep finding pieces that come out of the woodwork when John Smith in Alabama decides to purge his grandpa’s closet.
You can typically find great deals on anything you want - $40 for pants or a shirt, $80 for a jacket. But you’re not going to get a deal on The Jacket. You’ll most likely fork over $1K or more, if you can even find one.
Despite being made sometime between 1986-1995, the fit is spot-on. A rare thing for a time when most apparel designers thought people preferred wizard sleeves. The quality of the cotton canvas is second to none. A defining feature of it is the corduroy collar - within the subculture the whole coat itself is often referred to as simply, “the cord collar.” It gives the jacket an edge of sophistication that no other camo coats come close to. The pockets are beautifully oversized and the buttons are tough. It’s an instant classic - a perfect barn coat that happens to be cast in the perfect pattern. There’s a lot of camo jackets out there but The Jacket rules the roost.
Theoretically, anyone could re-make a jacket similar to this today and list a bunch of fancy product features to try to sell it. Marketing is a powerful tool that is capable of a lot - but this jacket has something that you can’t create in a factory or with good marketing. The real soul of this jacket is the stories that the ones in circulation have in their pockets. Its significance lies in the peoples dads and grandads that hunted in these exact same jackets for decades, were stewards of turkey conservation, and then passed them down to their kids and grandkids that wear them today. The fact that it’s old is a big part of what makes it what it is. The Jacket symbolizes generations of passionate wild turkey hunters and the legacy and community that they’ve built together. And I’d even go as far to say that it is a physical beacon of the overall health of wild turkey populations in the South. It’s a reminder of what a community was able to achieve in the last half century and a token of respect to the people that saved the iconic American bird from disappearing.
I particularly appreciate that The Jacket and the pattern it’s cast in is able to blur lines. Yes, it is an effective camouflage pattern and I routinely wear it each Spring on the first day I go looking for birds. I’ve called in multiple turkeys into 6 yards with my back against a tree head to toe in Bottomland, so I really do believe that it works as a piece of functional gear. But I also love that Bottomland has clearly made its mark on people who aren’t even hunters - people who just appreciate a well-designed pattern.
You know you’re doing something right when modern brands, even outside of the hunting space, attempt to rip it off all the time, 40 years after it was designed. And it’s not unusual for the coolest brands in menswear or streetwear to officially license the pattern. Most of them have no idea what it’s used for or what the history of it is, but they know that it looks good. From Tyler Childers to Post Malone, it’s not uncommon to see the most relevant musicians of today wearing it on stage.
It’s hard to look at this jacket without visualizing it being worn in the late 80s or early 90s. It just has that look of something your dad would’ve worn. Most people that own one, won’t get rid of it even for a lot of cash. They’d rather hunt in it, create memories, and pass it down to their son or daughter with a smile on their face. There’s a reason dads pass down their Rolex to their sons: it was probably with them at all life’s most important moments, and seen a hell of a lot of adventures. The Jacket is the turkey hunting version of that, amongst everything else. As mine gets older, its story is only getting better.
cherished history
Clicked because of the title, stayed for the killer deep dive into hunting and outdoors culture. 🫡