7 of The Greatest Chore Coats Money Can Buy.

Summary

Michael from The Iron Snail presents a comprehensive guide to chore coats, examining 6-7 jackets to help viewers understand what details matter when choosing the right one. He explains that chore coats got standardized during the Industrial Revolution when factories needed to make 80 at a time rather than one custom piece, so modern premium versions differentiate themselves through cuffs, pocket style, length, thickness, and historical references.

The video covers iconic American brands like Pointer/LC King (the Reddit darling of 2013-2017) and Carhartt (100+ years of triple-stitched durability), compares Buck Mason’s P41 military-inspired version and felted wool experiment, explores the Paynter phenomenon (800 jackets selling in 2 minutes with New York Times coverage), and crowns Le Mont St. Michel as the undisputed king for their heavy moleskin fabric developed specifically for Brittany, France’s windy, rainy climate. The video culminates with Drake’s $700 selvedge denim chore coat, praised for thoughtful details like double-layered shoulder panels with cut-outs for mobility.

Highlights

”I opened the box and I was like, I am the hottest man”

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“I opened the box and I was like, I don’t see the big deal. And then I put the chore coat on and I was like, I am the hottest man.” — Michael, 0:28

”People go absolutely feral for these bad boys”

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“People go absolutely feral for these bad boys. They sell out in like 2 minutes, 800 of them. There’s a New York Times article about them. You don’t own just one thing from this brand. You own like three or four.” — Michael, 0:44

”There was Carhartt, there was Levi’s, and then there was Pointer”

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“There was Carhartt, there was Levi’s, and then there was Pointer and LC King. It’s that foundational to American workwear.” — Michael, 4:25

”Sports coat, chore coat, and cardigan all had one baby”

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“This is like if a sports coat, a chore coat, and a cardigan all got together and had one baby.” — Michael, 7:00

”The CEO said grab one from the 30s and go back to work”

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“The CEO said you could just grab one from the 30s and 40s, toss it on, and go back to work.” — Michael, 10:55

”There’s a little cut right here on the inside”

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“There’s a little cut right here on the inside of the jacket on that panel. I love that detail. Drake’s I always associate with just heavy layering. So, this could just make it a little bit smoother to toss this jacket over some of their other jackets or shirts.” — Michael, 12:45

Key Points

• No Historical Chore Coat Standard (1:03) - Chore coats got standardized and generic during Industrial Revolution; premium versions now differentiate by cuffs, pockets, length, thickness
• Pointer/LC King Legacy (3:01) - The hottest Reddit brand 2013-2017 during Portlandia era, 12oz Mount Vernon duck canvas, same as Carhartt Made in America
• Pointer Brand Possibly Closed (4:09) - LC King sold Pointer, now may have closed shop - foundational to American workwear alongside Carhartt and Levi’s
• Buck Mason P41 Reference (6:31) - Based on WWII American military uniform jacket, densely woven “lightweight” fabric, women consistently compliment it
• Buck Mason Felted Wool Experiment (6:55) - Knit (not woven) boucle yarn that’s double-felted, hybrid of sports coat, chore coat, and cardigan
• Carhartt Signature Details (7:40) - Triple stitched seams, oversized fits, corduroy collar - 100+ years unchanged because it’s not broken
• Paynter Mania (8:00) - Husband-wife duo selling 800 jackets per quarter in under 1 minute, hand-numbered, batch-specific, New York Times article
• Bill’s Blue Origin (8:30) - Named after Bill Cunningham, NYT photographer who wore chore coat daily; French used benzidine dyes that fade to vibrant blue
• Le Mont St. Michel = King (9:00) - Heavyweight moleskin, what L.L.Bean is to duck boots, what Filson is to cruiser jacket
• Brittany Climate Theory (10:10) - Moleskin popular in Europe because Brittany has mild winters but very windy/rainy - don’t need extreme layers, just all-purpose brushed cotton
• Moleskin Construction (10:30) - Tightly woven cotton that’s brushed, napped, and shorn to be fluffy/peached - Europe’s alternative to American denim
• Drake’s $700 Justification (11:40) - Selvedge denim, lined pockets, riveted, triple stitching at shoulders, double-layer shoulder panel with cut-out for mobility
• Drake’s Shoulder Cut Detail (12:20) - Two layers of denim with strategic cut allows smooth layering over other jackets or acts as dart gusset for flexibility without balloon fit

Mentions

Companies

• Pointer/LC King (3:01) - Pointer is brand, LC King is manufacturer, foundational American workwear, Portlandia era Reddit darling
• Carhartt (1:41) - 100+ years of triple-stitched seams, oversized fits, corduroy collar, duck canvas
• Buck Mason (4:34) - California brand, P41 chore coat women love, felted wool experiment
• Paynter (8:00) - UK husband-wife duo, fashion industry veterans, batch sales of 800 jackets, hand-numbered, Corozo nut buttons
• Le Mont St. Michel (2:00) - French undisputed king, heavyweight moleskin, Breton work jacket heritage
• Drake’s (11:00) - $700 selvedge denim chore coat, nickel buttons exterior/copper interior, sophisticated layering focus
• Levi’s (4:27) - Referenced alongside Carhartt and Pointer as foundational American workwear
• Filson (2:18) - What Filson is to cruiser jacket, Le Mont St. Michel is to chore coat
• L.L.Bean (2:15) - What L.L.Bean is to duck boots, Le Mont St. Michel is to chore coat
• AG1 (5:35) - Video sponsor, 75 vitamins and minerals, fills dietary gaps
• Mount Vernon (3:31) - Source of 12oz duck canvas for Pointer, same as Carhartt Made in America
• New York Times (0:50) - Published article about Paynter phenomenon

Products & Technologies

• Duck Canvas (1:54) - American workwear standard, tightly woven, water runs off, used by Carhartt and Pointer
• Moleskin (2:26) - French/European fabric standard, tightly woven cotton that’s brushed and napped to be fuzzy/warm
• P41 Jacket (6:31) - WWII American military uniform, basis for Buck Mason chore coat
• Boucle Yarn (7:00) - Loopy textured yarn with core strand, used in Buck Mason felted chore coat
• Felting Process (7:15) - Locks wool together via barbs, Buck Mason double-felts knit fabric to strengthen while maintaining stretch
• Corozo Nut Buttons (8:15) - Natural dyed buttons used by Paynter, similar to Iron Snail Mammoth jacket
• Bill’s Blue (8:30) - Paynter’s famous blue color named after Bill Cunningham
• Benzidine Dyes (8:40) - French dyes that fade to vibrant blue over time, used instead of indigo on moleskin
• Selvedge Denim (12:00) - Used in Drake’s chore coat construction
• Breton Work Jacket (10:00) - Nickname for moleskin chore coat based on Brittany, France origin

People

• Bill Cunningham (8:30) - New York Times photographer who wore chore coat daily, Paynter’s “Bill’s Blue” named after him
• Holly (2:10) - Editor, asked to add Tyler Creator reference beat
• Taylor (6:17) - Partner, mentioned at grocery store when women complimented Buck Mason coat

Surprising Quotes

“I opened the box and I was like, I don’t see the big deal. And then I put the chore coat on and I was like, I am the hottest man.” — 0:28

“People go absolutely feral for these bad boys. They sell out in like 2 minutes, 800 of them. There’s a New York Times article about them. You don’t own just one thing from this brand. You own like three or four.” — 0:44

“There was Carhartt, there was Levi’s, and then there was Pointer and LC King. It’s that foundational to American workwear.” — 4:25

“This is like if a sports coat, a chore coat, and a cardigan all got together and had one baby.” — 7:00

“The CEO said you could just grab one from the 30s and 40s, toss it on, and go back to work.” — 10:55

Transcript

0:00 This is the big daddy of all chore coats, at least in my world. And I feel like 99% of people drool over one of these chore coats. Shockingly expensive online, but I found one on eBay for a good deal. It does live up to the hype. There’s a little cut right here on the inside of the jacket on that panel. I love that. I love that detail. This is some of the softest denim I’ve ever felt. All of the pockets are lined with an even softer flannel. There is just so many details like this that show a mastery of fit and sizing.

0:28 My personal experience with the brand. I opened the box and I was like, I don’t see the big deal. And then I put the chore coat on and I was like, I am the hottest man. But of course, we have a problem. Life is full of problems, my boy. Get used to it. And it’s not that I’m wearing double denim. The problem is in this sack. The problem is always in this sack.

0:44 If you watch these videos, this is the newest legend in the chore coat world. People go absolutely feral for these bad boys. They sell out in like 2 minutes, 800 of them. There’s a New York Times article about them. You don’t own just one thing from this brand. You own like three or four. I own three things from this brand.

0:59 But this is where the problem arises. There’s a great history of chore coats, but there is no official historical chore coat. In fact, these are the most - no offense to any of these brands - these are the most basic, not boring. Chore coats got standardized and more generic during the Industrial Revolution because you wanted to buy 80 of them instead of having one made specifically for you.

1:19 So, if we’re trying to get one now that is more specifically for you, there are certain things we need to pay attention to like cuffs, like pocket style, like length, like thickness, that when you put everything together, you could see what brands are referencing historically. For example, these cuffs require an extra step when being made versus something like these cuffs.

1:41 Exhibit A, Carhartt Coat. And if you’re saying, “Michael, technically that’s actually a barn coat.” Just stop it. You’re screwing me up. You win this round. What we need to focus on - triple stitched seams. Normally every stress point would be riveted. It uses a duck canvas instead of the bright blue moleskin that the French kind of perfected. Why? Personally, I think it’s because of the climate in Brittany, France, but we’ll get into that.

2:00 And then of course, we have the undisputed king of chore jackets. The French powerhouse. What L.L.Bean is to duck boots, what Filson is to the cruiser. And I do have to say after putting this coat on, yes, I can totally see why they are the undisputed king. This is not denim or canvas. It’s furry fuzzy moleskin. A French staple. A European staple really.

2:33 Okay. So, the goal for this video is to take a chore coat, blow it up, split it up into itty bitty pieces, see what pieces you like, what you don’t, what I like, what I don’t, what we want to throw out. And then we’ll be doing that by going over six to seven chore coats that we have today.

2:52 How are you guys? How’s it going? First off, happy spring. 4 days till spring. Look, I’m in a t-shirt and a chore coat. What a lovely day.

3:01 First on the list is one of my favorite jackets from the list. Pointer pointer pointer. Technically LC King. Pointer is the brand. LC King is the manufacturer. If you were on Reddit in like 2013 to 2017 or something like that while Portlandia was airing, which is embroidered on the back of this collar, you knew about Pointer. Pointer was the hottest brand. Everybody wanted a Pointer. It was the chore jacket. Including me. I was looking at it like, “Wow, I need that jacket more than anything in my life. I wish they made it skinnier.”

3:31 This is a 12oz duck canvas from Mount Vernon. Very, very tightly woven. As you can see, water just kind of drips right off. Same canvas that Carhartt uses from the same place for the Made in America stuff. So, it’s going to age the same. It’s going to look beautiful. Really big fan of it. It does get wet. Water still gets in, but it’s very, very tightly woven. Tough stuff.

3:55 This jacket is cut much more like a rider jacket, like a trucker type two, just a shorter jacket. I think based off of LC King’s website, this was a promotional thing for Portlandia, maybe for the cast or something because the sewing is done really simply. There’s no top stitching, no extra details.

4:09 What’s a bummer though is that the Pointer brand I believe got sold by LC King and LC King still made similar jackets but now recently it looks like they may have closed up shop. That being said, seriously if you know someone at LC King or Pointer, please connect them with me because I would love to do something together. There was Carhartt, there was Levi’s, and then there was Pointer and LC King. It’s that foundational to American workwear.

4:34 Buck Mason is a cool brand. Everybody knows that. But for some reason, the women love this chore coat in particular. I should note that I got these for free from Buck Mason. They did not pay me to say that or pay me at all.

6:17 I was meeting Taylor at the grocery store yesterday, so I just tossed this coat on. I walked outside and like 4 seconds later, some woman was like, “That’s a really nice coat.” And then I got to the grocery store and Taylor was talking to her friends and they’re both like, “That’s a really nice coat.”

6:31 This is the Buck Mason version of the ever famous P41. If you fought in World War II, you probably recognize this jacket because this is what the Americans wore as a uniform, albeit buttoned and with a big belt, but that is the P41. The BM boys call this a lightweight fabric. It’s woven so densely that it has some nice structure.

6:55 And then this is a weird coat. It’s still Buck Mason. This is their felted chore coat. I got it in the mail and I was like, “What is this?” This is like if a sports coat, a chore coat, and a cardigan all got together and had one baby. The first really unique thing about it is the yarn. This is a boucle yarn. So instead of just three uniform strands, you have one strand of yarn, a strong center core, then you loop one around it all crazy, and then you put one more around it that secures it. And what you get is this wet and wild super textured puffy lofty yarn.

7:25 The interesting crazy part is this is a knit fabric, not a woven. So a sweater, not jeans. And it has a ton of stretch, but Buck Mason double felts it. Felting locks wool together because of all the little barbs on wool. So it’s still stretchy, but if you pull it, you can hear all of the little barbs kind of splitting apart. This to me screams that Buck Mason is a California brand. California brands usually I find like everything they make is a little lighter weight than what I would wear in New England.

7:55 This is a little tiny brand called Carhartt. And putting on this jacket feels like putting on an old baseball mitt. Carhartt, Levi’s, Pointer, Big Yank. Everybody had their own thing in the US when they were making chore coats. Carhartt’s big thing was just insanely durable stuff. So triple stitch seams, that’s signature Carhartt. Really oversized fits. And then corduroy collar. There’s a reason why Carhartt advertises their chore coat all the time. 100 years of chore coat. It’s just because it’s something that’s not broken. They don’t need to fix it. The longer you wear it, the better it gets.

8:25 Paynter Jackets. If you are into Paynter, you know what I’m talking about when I say this. It is just so clear that they are fashion industry veterans. It’s a two-person company, husband and wife duo. Everything they do is just top-notch, executed perfectly. It feels like when you are on Paynter’s website or looking at their marketing, it feels like you live in this little perfect cartoon fantasy world where everything is happy and people just go drink coffees and walk around all the time.

8:55 They have little notes that are like, “There’s no care instructions. Just take care of yourself.” They have a limited edition patch with every drop. They hand number every single one of their jackets. They also use dyed Corozo nut buttons. All of their sales are done in batches. This is apparently a Batch 14 jacket. They make 800 jackets a quarter. All the jackets are different, so you won’t get another Batch 14 like this configuration specifically. And they sell out usually in like 1 minute or less.

9:20 This blue is very famous. Paynter calls it Bill’s Blue after Bill Cunningham, a New York Times photographer who just wore a jacket like this day in and day out. But the whole thing is much like denim, chore coats should fade. Usually the French ones are moleskin and they don’t use indigo. They use benzidine based dyes. So they would fade to a really vibrant blue over time.

9:50 And finally, the king, Le Mont St. Michel. Definitely probably the highest quality chore coat we have on this list for a specific reason, which is fascinating. You don’t usually see a fabric like this in workwear. And I don’t mean moleskin. This is fundamentally different than USA based workwear, which was a big fan of denim and duck canvas. This was originally nicknamed the Breton work jacket. Based off of Brittany, France.

10:25 I was wondering to myself, why does France and Europe in general like moleskin so much and the US doesn’t? If this is nicknamed the Breton work jacket, that allowed us to narrow it down - and Brittany is typically a temperate mild climate. Winters don’t get too cold. It’s very windy and very rainy though. “Oh, this is moleskin, Europe’s alternative to denim.”

10:50 Moleskin is a very tightly woven cotton fabric that is then brushed, napped, shorn - it’s fluffy essentially. Some people even call it peached. If you live somewhere where the winters are never really going to get that crazy and you have to worry about wind and rain and that’s about it, maybe you layer slightly different. You use a more all-purpose fabric. This is all you need. Brush it, nap it, short a little bit, make it a little bit warmer to the touch.

11:15 The last big thing about Le Mont St. Michel that really differentiated them is they said, “Hey, if we’re going to make a coat, we’re going to make it out of the highest quality fabric that we possibly can use.” So, this is a longer staple combed cotton multi yarn. So, it’s very nice and should wear for a very long time. That is why the CEO said you could just grab one from the 30s and 40s, toss it on, and go back to work.

11:40 And finally, the greatest, in my opinion, modern reinterpretation of the chore coat around, the $700 symbol of the working class, the Drake’s chore coat. I have toured manufacturers all over the world and I’m very familiar with the fact that they will say “here is where we make a $7,000 sweatshirt and here is where we make a $50 sweatshirt.” I’m not saying Drake’s is doing any of that. What I am actually saying is knowing all of that, I still put this on and was like, “Wow, this is from Drake’s.” You could just tell a lot of thought went into every single detail.

12:15 All of the pockets are lined. They’re also all riveted. Small detail, but nickel button outer. Copper interior. I like that. Nice interior pockets. Selvedge denim. But what I really like, there’s triple stitching here at the top of the shoulder that ends both at the back and the front. I feel like that’s a cool way of adding extra durability only where you need it and flexibility and comfort everywhere else.

12:45 The other cool thing is actually in the same spot. This panel right here. This is actually two layers of denim across the shoulder. That gives you a solid amount more durability on this jacket for the long term. But also, look, there’s a little cut right here on the inside of the jacket on that panel. I love that detail. Drake’s I always associate with just heavy layering. So, this could just make it a little bit smoother to toss this jacket over some of their other jackets or shirts. It could also be a way of shaping the jacket better so it sits on you in a very pleasing Drake’s way.

13:20 Also, this could be a dart gusset type hybrid thing. I don’t know the exact construction of it, but that’s what you pay for with Drake’s. Obviously, the materials and the construction are top-notch. Everything is super classy. But those little details that you don’t really notice or when you toss it on, it feels extra good. That’s what you pay for with Drake’s.

13:45 Anyway, thank you very much for watching. Next week is my watch collection, which I think should be fun. But anyways, I just want to thank you really quick for watching these videos. I don’t feel like I do thank you enough, and I should.