Josh Peskowitz and OMTC unveil handwoven workwear capsule for summer

Josh Peskowitz’s cleanest flex this summer is a utility jacket that actually earned its pockets. His four-piece collaboration with Original Madras Trading Company folds handwoven Madras into chore-friendly silhouettes, and the result looks less like a nostalgia exercise than a serious argument for why workwear still has room to surprise.

The capsule landed with four pieces: the Straight Collar Long Sleeve Shirt Welted Pocket Shirt Jacket for $295, the oversized Military Jacket for $350, the Boxy Dress Shirt for $220, and the Wafu Utility Jacket for $295. The strongest piece is the Wafu Utility Jacket, cut in OMTC’s Jacquard Weave, a double-cloth construction made on jacquard handlooms with 20s-count yarns. It is made in India at OMTC’s headquarters in Madras, where the brand says its weavers handcraft the cotton on proprietary handlooms before company tailors cut and stitch it into finished garments.

That kind of finish matters because OMTC is not treating Madras as a print or a mood board reference. The company says it is a third-generation family business established in the 1970s, reviving the craft of hand weaving Madras in Madras and making exclusively handwoven garments that stretch from button-downs to jackets and bath robes. In other words, this is not generic summer shirting dressed up with artisanal copy. The fabric itself is the point.

Peskowitz’s backstory gives the capsule its best detail. The Military Jacket was inspired by a 70s jungle overshirt he found in an army surplus store in Long Island about 20 years ago, when he needed something for an impromptu paintball game. The Wafu Utility Jacket traces to a different find, a vintage-shop discovery in Japan more than a decade ago. OMTC says that original jacket’s multiple nested pockets and reinforced seam stitching made it “endlessly useful,” and the company also describes the fabric as giving the piece a “bright and modern” feel. That is the line between story and substance: the jacket sounds collectible because it was built like something meant to work.

At $295, the Wafu Utility Jacket is not a bargain-basement Madras shirt with extra hardware. It is a real attempt to turn handwoven cloth into a better summer utility layer, and the silhouette holds up because the construction does the heavy lifting. This is the rare case where artisanal fabric does expand the workwear conversation, not just prettify a familiar jacket formula.