Unstructured jacket vs Sports Coat: when to wear one or the other?
I'm big on jackets; they let me carry my wallet and phone without adding uncomfortable weight or bulges to my pants, they look great, and they can dress up or down an outfit as needed.
That said, I'm looking to add some to my wardrobe and, although I understand the differences between the two, I'm not quite sure when one would reach for one over the other. Everything I'm reading says an unstructured jacket is the go-to for situations that don't require a full suit. Where then does a "structured" sports coat become the better choice?
Thanks.
4 Replies
Just personal preference really. Not all sport coats are very structured, many are pretty unstructured. Just find something that has a good silhouette on your shoulders and you're good to go
If you want feedback on a specific outfit, try #outfit-feedback because I think this question is a bit too broad to give a satisfying answer
Okay, so, you want to look into how a jacket / sport coat is constructed. Basically, you have the shell, which is cut in a pattern to fit your body. Then you have, on the inside, some combination of canvas, padding (for shoulders as an alternative to canvas), and fusing. Canvas is either fused or sewn in place (or both.)
But in the same way that there's not just one fabric used for a jacket, there's not only one choice of a canvas (or fusable.) They are made of different materials in different compositions, different weight and stiffness and so forth, and they are shaped differently to achieve the final results. So you can have two jackets that seem fairly similar at first blush when discussing how they're made: fully canvassed, sewn not fused. Yet, one of them can be significantly stiffer and heavier than the other.
So along the spectrum of "heavily structured" to "unstructured" (meaning no canvas, no fusing, etc), you have, I think, two considerations:
1. Intent in appearance vis-a-vis formality
2. Temperature control
So, 1 is basically like this. At the highest end of formality, you want structuring and some amount of stiffness. You don't need much but you need some. (Because context.) Anywhere less than "very formal" or "the most formal" you can choose to have significantly less, and anywhere less than "very formal" or maybe "quite formal" you are likely able to pull off an unstructured jacket. What those definitions actually mean will vary.
Not to get too much into the weeds, but a "named" dress code like white tie or black tie would generally imply too much formality for an unstructured jacket to fly. Cocktail attire might depending on your social circles be similar, at least at the more formal events... let's say, a summer (member) wedding at a country club. Interview attire might, again, depending on your social circles be similar, in that unstructured is too slouchy. I would suggest that if you do not feel like the occasion requires significant and serious attention to formality, unstructured is fine. (Assuming as always that, despite being unstructured, it fits well, drapes well, and the color/pattern/material matches the expected levels of formality from a 25 foot distance.)
But now we get into (2) which is always really interesting.
The brits were (and still are) kind of the masters of unwritten rules of formality and requiring adequate levels of formality and being quite harrumph-y about not being adequately dressed. Yet, brits and their spiritual (and literal) descendents, when they moved from the often-raining sometimes-snowing windy chilly UK, when they moved from cold drafty buildings that could never be fully heated in the winter, to places where it's hot, quickly said "actually you know what, we came up with X Y Z alternatives that we have decided are adequately formal." For example, cummerbund instead of vest? Comes from sashes, and were worn in hotter countries. White dinner jackets? Adopted for hotter temperatures. "No white after labor day"? Really became "No white after ... later" when people moved from NYC to Key West.
So for higher levels of formality, as heat increases, you'd go from a heavily structured, heavyweight wool barathea dinner jacket, to a lightly structured lightweight wool-mohair dinner jacket. Or, for example, if you're attending a fancy wedding and it's going to be 96F and directly sunny, and you choose an unstructured linen suit in navy, instead of your standard navy wool suit, nobody will bat an eye, because needs must.
So an unstructured jacket has a lot less "stuff." It is lighter, thinner, and air blows through it easier. Couple that with the right materials - an open-weave / high twist / tropical / fresco wool, wool-silk or wool-linen or wool-silk-linen blends, or (lightweight, not heavyweight irish) linen, you end up with a jacket that breathes well and is light. Take off most of the lining, leaving just arms and shoulders, and it breathes even better. Perfect for hot weather. (Even more perfect if it's sand, tan, ivory, etc, but it might be too informal in color for some events.)
"When do you reach for an unstructured jacket?" TL;DR:
- Obviously, when you want to, and
- When the event isn't formal enough for anyone to care (which these days might be most of them, or even all of them, depending on your social circles), and
- When the event is hot enough that anything else will make you miserable (which, even if the event is more formal, means allowances for things like this).
Hope this helps.
Very helpful, thank you. I'm in the (U.S.) South. We obviously get the extreme heat (and humidity), but we also tend to get some extreme cold during the winter as well. I'm doing some info-gathering before I start building a small but flexible assortment of jackets for weather and occasion.
Depending on where in the south, seersucker suits/separates are also quite popular. Same reason you'd see a lawyer wearing seersucker in court in AL but not MA: temperature control influences the norms of acceptable formality much more heavily than most adherents of "what is correct" would admit :P