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Bespoke Rosicrucian Battle Jacket — rear view worn, full back panel with the Rosy Cross and the motto Dum Spiro Spero The jacket on display — full back composition, the Rosy Cross beneath Dum Spiro Spero Debbi Cohilas hand-painting the back panel of the jacket in the atelier Painting-process detail — the central Rosy Cross motif being hand-painted Front view worn — the chest Rosy Cross and a painted rose sleeve Rose sleeve detail — hand-painted roses and thorned vines Serpent sleeve detail — a crowned serpent beside a checkerboard panel
Rosicrucian

Bespoke Rosicrucian Battle Jacket

Commissions from $2,200
Created to commission. Final price varies with symbolism, complexity, materials, and customization; $2,200 is the starting point.
Created to commission — each jacket unique to its wearer
Hand-painted on a premium black Levi's denim trucker jacket
Rosy Cross and the motto Dum Spiro Spero across the back
Acrylic, heat-applied vinyl, and rhinestone accents · individually hand-painted and finished
Roses, crowned serpents, and checkerboard panels
Handcrafted in the Washington, DC region
Timeline: confirmed at commission inquiry
Commission Inquiry

This piece is built to commission. Send the subject, scale, reference handling, materials, and timeline. We respond and confirm scope before work begins.

Begin Commission Inquiry →

Created as a one-of-one wearable artwork on premium black denim, hand-painted with the Rosy Cross — the central emblem of the Rosicrucian tradition.

Across the shoulders runs a single line: Dum Spiro Spero — "while I breathe, I hope." Beneath it, a radiant Rosy Cross opens at the centre, ringed by roses and serpents; the Mosaic Pavement runs the side panels. Each jacket of this kind is painted to commission — created once, for one wearer, and never repeated.

Artist & Craftsmanship

The jacket is the work of Debbi Cohilas. A graduate of the California Institute of the Arts, she has spent more than thirty years in film and television as a storyboard artist, director, and animation timer — her credits include Avatar: The Last Airbender, Family Guy, and King of the Hill. That discipline — the practised translation of an idea into a clear, weighted image — is present in every inch of this piece.

The imagery is hand-painted in professional acrylics, with high-quality heat-applied vinyl elements and rhinestone accents introduced with restraint — catching light where the composition asks for it and nowhere it does not. The back panel was built by hand from the centre outward, as the process photographs attest.

Symbolism & Meaning

At the heart of the back panel is the Rosy Cross — the rose set at the centre of the cross, the emblem from which the Rosicrucian current takes its name. It is the old image of the soul flowering upon the frame of discipline: the cross as the structure of a life, the rose as what opens at its centre when the work is done patiently and well.

The roses that climb the sleeves and ring the central panel carry the same idea in repetition — beauty drawn up through thorn, the slow unfolding of something cultivated rather than seized. The serpents along the arm speak the language of transformation and renewal: the creature that sheds its skin and continues, crowned here to mark mastery of that process rather than mere survival of it. The checkerboard panels are the Mosaic Pavement — the ground of light and dark on which such work is done.

Above it all stands the motto. Dum Spiro Spero is a maxim of perseverance: hope held not as sentiment but as discipline, sustained for as long as there is breath. A hexagram and a scatter of planetary and zodiacal signs set the whole within the wider symbolic cosmos of the Western Mystery Tradition.

Materials & Construction

  • Premium black Levi's denim trucker jacket
  • Hand-painted acrylic artwork
  • High-quality heat-applied vinyl elements
  • Rhinestone accents
  • Hand-painted and finished by the artist
  • Created to commission — each jacket unique to its wearer; never reproduced

Pricing & Acquisition

Each jacket is created to commission. The work shown here is one such piece; yours would be painted to your own symbolism, tradition, and specification. Final pricing varies with the complexity of the imagery, the materials and customization involved, and the scope agreed — commissions begin at $2,200, and a consultation is required to confirm scope.

A commission begins with a conversation: we confirm the symbolic field, source garment, sizing, materials, and timeline in writing before any work begins.

Commissions from $2,200 · Created to commission · Begin a commission inquiry.