A good sport coat is the most useful tailored piece you can own. It works for business, carries you through dinners, parties and events, and dresses up jeans on the weekend, all the places where a suit would be too much. Here's how we help clients choose one, whether it's their first or their fifth.
1. Sport coat, blazer or suit jacket?
- Sport coat: a tailored jacket worn on its own, usually in a cloth with texture or pattern, think plaid, tweed, flannel, houndstooth or a check. Meant to be paired with trousers or jeans.
- Blazer: a solid-color sport coat, most often navy, traditionally with contrasting buttons. The most versatile jacket you can own.
- Suit jacket: made to be worn with matching trousers. Most suit cloths look unfinished when worn as a separate jacket, which is why a sport coat is cut from different fabrics.
2. Start with the right first jacket
If you're building a wardrobe, we usually suggest this order:
- A navy blazer in a classic four-season wool, or a more modern, lighter-weight hopsack. It goes with almost any trousers you own and takes you from everyday business to a Friday night out.
- A textured jacket in a richer, darker tone, in wool, cashmere, flannel or tweed, for fall and winter.
- A warm-weather jacket in a light, summery linen, linen blend or lightweight wool, for spring and summer.
Once you have one or two staples, you have more flexibility to inject some personality: think bolder patterns and colors.
3. Choose your cloth
We carry the full ranges of Loro Piana, Taglia Delfino, Dormeuil, Holland & Sherry and Scabal, along with other leading mills in Huddersfield, England and Biella, Italy. For sport coats, popular choices are:
- Tweed and flannel: warm, textured and forgiving, for fall and winter.
- Hopsack: an open weave that breathes well and resists wrinkles, ideal for a year-round blazer.
- Cashmere and cashmere blends: soft and luxurious, and remarkably warm for their weight.
- Linen, silk and wool blends: light and breathable for summer.
- Corduroy and moleskin: relaxed and durable, for the weekend.
- Velvet: rich and festive, for holiday parties, evening events and anywhere you want to stand out.
We'll help you weigh color, weight, texture and how often you'll wear it.
Some of our favorite Spring/Summer and Fall/Winter fabrics:
4. Choose the details
- Shoulder: a soft, natural shoulder for a relaxed, modern look, or a more structured shoulder for a sharper line.
- Pockets: flap pockets are our standard. Patch pockets dress it down, and adding a ticket pocket above the flap dresses it up.
- Lapel: a notch lapel is standard for a sport coat. A peak lapel adds presence.
- Buttons: natural water buffalo horn, metal for a classic blazer, or leather shank buttons for tweed and corduroy.
- Vents: we typically recommend side vents, for the most ease of movement.
- Lining: we usually use Bemberg, a natural, breathable and nearly weightless lining, and prefer a fully lined jacket. Half or quarter lining is available for a lighter, cooler jacket.
- Something different: because every jacket starts from your own pattern, we can make less traditional styles too, such as Western-style jackets, unique details like throat latches or contrast suede trims, or anything else you can envision.
Make it yours with the lining
The lining is where a sport coat gets its personality. The outside can be a classic navy or tweed, while the inside is entirely your choice: a bold color, a paisley, a print that means something to you. It's seen only when the jacket opens or comes off, which is exactly what makes it fun.
Every sport coat is built like our suit jackets, with a full canvas and hand-made pockets, armholes and collars, so it moulds to you over time and holds its shape for years.
5. How to wear it
- For business: your navy blazer with charcoal grey trousers and a dress shirt, with or without a tie.
- At events: a velvet, cashmere or bold patterned jacket with dark trousers for holiday parties, dinners, rehearsal dinners and cocktail receptions.
- Smart casual: over a knit polo, a fine-gauge sweater or a turtleneck, with chinos.
- On the weekend: with an oxford shirt and dark jeans.
- Layered: over one of our Sport Vests, in a matching or contrasting cloth.
6. Custom or ready-to-wear?
A custom made-to-order sport coat starts at $1,450. It's cut from a pattern drafted for you and hand-tailored in our Brooklyn factory, in the cloth and details you choose. Allow about 6 to 8 weeks. We keep your pattern on file, so your next jacket fits just as well. We make custom jackets and blazers for women too.
Ready-to-wear blazers are made in the same factory and available now, a good choice if you're close to a standard size.
Book a custom appointment or shop ready-to-wear blazers.
Looks to consider
The Country Tweed. Brown or green, worn with a complimenting wool, flannel or corduroy trouser.
The Velvet Evening Jacket. Velvet with a bold lining, for holiday parties and evening events.
The Western Jacket. A sport coat with a shaped Western yoke across the shoulders, set off in contrast suede, with matching suede pocket flaps if you like.
The Summer Linen. A light-colored silk, linen and wool blend jacket with a soft shoulder, for warm-weather evenings.
The Cashmere Weekend. A camel or brown cashmere jacket with a matching or contrast Sport Vest, for cold-weather layering.
Every jacket we make is cut and sewn by hand: a tailored take on Americana, and proof that custom means more than classic.
Caring for your sport coat
Most of the time, a sport coat doesn't need cleaning, just pressing. Take it to your dry cleaner to be pressed: the heat and steam take care of wrinkles, sweat and everyday wear. Dry clean it only when absolutely necessary, no more than 4 to 6 times a year, because frequent dry cleaning wears out the cloth. Between wears, hang it on a shaped hanger to keep its line.
Ready to start?
Book an appointment at our factory, 3rd Floor, 239 Varet Street, Brooklyn, or call (718) 497-5480. Building a full wardrobe? See our Suit Buying Guide and Tuxedo Buying Guide. Have more questions? See our FAQ.