I’m going to start with a straight-up simplification of this review: The Walls Angus Worn-in Stretch Light Work Jacket is the best work jacket I’ve ever owned. There, I’ve said it. If nothing else in this review sticks with you, I hope that that sentiment does. I have a couple of different work jackets hanging up in the mud room right now (and many more that I’ve burned through over the years), and the Angus jacket had a perfect out-of-the-box feel and has survived a bevy of difficult and dirty tasks during the past several weeks of chilly spring mornings. I’m not even reaching for my other jackets anymore. Here’s the full Walls work jacket review, including specific takeaways and features of the Angus:
The fit and feel
After years of working outside and tending to animals, crops, and all kinds of fencing projects and other chores, I can sense frailty and “cheapness” right away. Maybe it’s the weight of something, or the stitching, or the way it bends not quite right (there’s a joke about your bad back in that last one, isn’t there?), but if something isn’t going to last on the farm or job site, it’s not worth having. Nothing irritates me more than a poorly made tool, vehicle, or item of clothing — the kinds of things that fail at just the wrong time and far sooner than they should.
The Walls’ Angus Worn-in Stretch Light Work Jacket met — and then surpassed — all expectations. I haven’t had the slightest reservation about it. It has a great weight, and it feels durable without feeling stiff. I can lift my arms over my head without the whole jacket pulling up around my waist, and that’s achieved without adding a lot of excess material or saggy gussets around the shoulders.
The fit is true to size, and the jacket has five exterior pockets and two interior ones. The two standard outside breast pockets have snaps, while a third breast pocket is zippered. The hip pockets have a fuzzy lining, which means your hands warm up quickly even if you don’t have gloves on. The interior left pocket is zippered (perfect for stashing keys or credit cards), and the interior right has a Velcro closure. The cuffs have snaps to adjust the wrist openings, which is essential for days when the wind picks up and the chills try to sneak up your sleeves.
I like the feel of the Angus jacket’s flannel-lined interior, and the garment has a ribbed-lined collar on the inside (a nice comfortable feature), while extending its strong cotton shell up around the exterior of the collar. I’m generally not a fan of jackets that have interior and exterior ribbed collars, because the exterior ribbing is too easily snagged on a branch in the woods or latched onto by an inquisitive horse. The Walls jacket keeps its material strength on the outside, where it should be.
Durability
Speaking of that strength, one of the most immediate things I noticed on this jacket was the stitching: The seams are at least double-, and often triple-, stitched, making them virtually impossible to rip open or tear apart under normal working conditions. (It baffles me how common single-stitching still is on some real workwear items.)
The shell is made of nine-ounce stonewashed, sanded cotton duck material, which is genuinely tough but also offers a bit of stretch for you to move in. When I tested this, we were going through a span of unusually windy days, and the material, coupled with the aforementioned flannel buffalo check lining, did great keeping the winds off of my body.
Walls also didn’t skimp on the jacket’s hardwear, a further testament to how much thought went into this to keep it durable. The main zipper is extremely heavy duty (unrivaled among the jackets I own), and the pocket zippers hold up well, too. On the cuffs and pockets, the snaps, which are emblazoned with the Walls name, never popped apart by accident, yet were easy enough to open and close even while wearing gloves.
The bottom line
The way the materials worked together, this may not be your first-week-of-February, brutal-cold go-to jacket, but it would be an easy jacket to wear on the front and back end of winter, or on the cool mornings and evenings of spring and fall. It carries a nice versatility with it, where it can take a hit of hard work on a Saturday afternoon and still be fitting to wear off the farm.
I love how much organization it has, but also that it can be highly functional without feeling bulky. And that’s so vital for me. I’m around machinery and animals enough that I don’t wear loose-fitting clothes — it’s too hazardous. The only complaint I could see anyone having about this jacket is that it doesn’t come with a built-in hood, but, again, it’s not intended for the deepest, nastiest weeks of winter. I prefer it without the hood, because there’s less bulk, I have good visibility, and I still have all the flexibility I need to pair a hat or neck gaiter with it and layer my clothing as the weather forecast calls for.
The Walls Angus Worn-in Stretch Light Work Jacket is such a functional, well-designed jacket that I haven’t considered wearing another jacket on chilly spring mornings for several weeks.
This review was not sponsored, nor did Walls or any PR companies have input on the content of this article prior to publication. All images are courtesy of the reviewer.
Ryan Tipps is the managing editor for AGDAILY. He has covered farming since 2011, and his writing has been honored by state- and national-level agricultural organizations.
