A new canvas jacket stands up on its own and treats you like a stranger. Six months from now it will fit like it grew on you. Here's how to get there.
Wear it. That's most of it. Canvas breaks in at the stress points - elbows, shoulders, the spot where your bag strap rides. No wash cycle can fake where your body bends. The jacket becomes a record of how you move. Let it.
Weather helps. Light rain softens canvas better than any product. Get caught in it, let the jacket dry on your shoulders or on a hanger - never a radiator. Sun fades the high points first, which is how canvas earns its depth. A jacket that's never seen weather looks like it.
Wash it rarely, and cold. First wash after a month or more, cold, inside out, hung to dry. Every wash softens; too many washes erase. Spot-clean the rest of the time. Dirt is not an emergency.
Skip the shortcuts. Sandpaper, bleach sprays, a night tied to your car bumper - people do all of these. The result reads fake the way pre-ripped jeans read fake. Broken-in and distressed are different words because they're different things.
The creases are yours. After a season, look at the elbows. That map of lines belongs to you and nobody else - same reason we sell the Rambler unfinished. The clean version is Chapter One. Wear is just the story writing itself in a second language.