If you’re the kind of traveler who collects both memories and mementos, welcome to the club. I used to drag home those tragic tourist tees —the ones you swear you’ll turn into a quilt but never do because, let’s be honest, no one is that crafty after a red-eye. Post-COVID, once my passport started seeing daylight again, I ditched the $30 “I ❤ Generic City” shirts and upgraded to something far more chic, far more personal: travel patches.

Maybe it’s the former Girl Scout in me, maybe it’s the inner magpie…either way, I kept accumulating patches with absolutely zero plan. Then the universe, in its usual smug little way, intervened. My friend gifted me a gorgeous patch from a local spot. I marched it along with a washed-out pink Free People jacket to my tailor, where my go-to girl Grace stitched it on. I gave her full creative freedom, and she did not disappoint.

I wore the jacket once, tucked it away, and promptly forgot about it…until a deep-cleaning spiral revealed my secret stash of patches. I texted Grace asking, “Can we add all of these?”— and just like that, my simple jacket became an ever-evolving, wanderlust-soaked custom travel piece. The trick? I surrendered my OCD placement tendencies and let an expert bring the chaos to life.

The Anatomy of a patch jacket:

Buy a cute jacket you like (no justification necessary).

• Let a single stunning patch spark the vision.
• If you can’t sew, take everything to a tailor who gets it.
• Collect new patches from everywhere that inspires you.
• Watch your jacket turn into a wearable scrapbook.

Fashion should be fun, full stop. But when your style tells your story? That’s when the real magic happens.

Shop my fave denim jackets here