A work jacket is designed by asking a specific question.
Will this survive being worn ten hours a day, in weather, by someone hauling materials, kneeling on concrete and catching it on things?
Every answer produces a design decision. Heavy canvas. Triple stitching. Reinforced elbows. Pockets positioned for tools rather than hands.
Nothing about that process involves fashion. It involves a person who will complain loudly if the jacket fails.
Which is why, a century later, that jacket is worn in cities by people who have never worked a job requiring it, at prices that have nothing to do with canvas.
The Michigan company that makes it did not do this on purpose, and the way it responded is the interesting part.