Is it all right to wear the same wool blazer every day?
I go to work thrice a week (M-W) and usually wear a blazer. I own two; one is tweed that I use in the colder months and the other is made of tropical wool for the warmer months. Outside of work, I sometimes wear them for cultural events in the city (e.g. museums, films, etc.). So in a given week, I will wear it 3-4 days.
Is it all right to wear the same blazer thrice in a row or will that ruin the garment?
31 Replies
It will probably be fine, although you generally want to stagger wearing tailoring if only for cleanliness-- I would not be worried though, since it gets -34 days off. If you were wearing it everyday all week it'd be different though\
I think it's not really okay. If someone at my work would wear the same clothes every day, I would view that as unhygienic. How often do you clean it?
A jacket or piece of outerwear tho?
Outerwear would be different but the same jacket/suit 3 days in a row...
🤷 As long as you're not sweating in it and wearing collared shirts I don't see much of an issue. It's at least one layer separated from your skin.
It's not like one wears a sport coat/suit jacket once and then you take it to the cleaners. Wearing it back to back to back etc. will but a bit more wear on the garment but idt it's particularly gross unless you're wearing it to dance or something
I don't think it would be extremely gross, but I would definitely notice if my colleague would wear the same jacket every day for weeks or months. Of course you could look at it differently and I'm not saying you're wrong, but I would be more judgmental and I guess other people could also think that way
Apart from that, why would you limit yourself to only one or two jackets if you clearly enjoy wearing them often?
Been there, done that. It's totally fine if you wear collared shirts. (Body hygiene is a given.)
I more or less agree. Practically speaking it is probably fine. But it is almost certain that people will notice you wear the same jacket every time you are in the office for 4 months a year. Some people will find that offputting.
Because buying another one is expensive 😄
Ebay a tweed jacket for $50. Ebay a linen or cool-wearing wool blend jacket for $50-75. Ebay a mid weight wool or wool blend jacket for $50-100. I am not saying the magic number is (or isn't) five, but with maybe five total jackets you can wear a jacket that isn't yesterday's jacket every time you go to the office across all seasons. Assuming you care that people notice you currently wear the same one every day (which I am not sure you do, but you might.)
As some examples, what I tend to rotate through the most are: in order: linen, lightweight wool (hopsack), flannel but fairly lightweight wool, lightweight tweed (coarse, nailhead), tweed (scratchy, thick). Pretty much works for spring/summer, early fall, fall/winter. Not necessarily the most optimal setup but it's just an example
https://imgur.com/FU9tj21
https://imgur.com/ZOtjLhT
https://imgur.com/OpevMRA
https://imgur.com/r4scmYY
https://imgur.com/yIyCe6E
I understand that but I'd rather save up to buy the best jacket possible (better yet: get a custom one).
I'll take a look at eBay.
Don't sleep on getting something for cheap on eBay and then getting it tailored. Custom jackets short of bespoke are going to be almost the same thing anyway unless you can go in person to get fitted
I understand the idea that buying an inexpensive jacket and getting it tailored is some sort of half-step corner-cutting that'll be disappointing in comparison to the best jacket possible. And in a way that is correct. However, it is only correct given a fairly high budget. Based on you saying "Because buying another one is expensive" I have to assume that budget is a significant concern. So let's do the math using some estimated numbers:
Three more jackets (since you already have two) second-hand: $75/ea x 3 = $225
Tailoring per jacket: sleeves, waist: $80 x 3 = $240
Total: ~$465. Let's round up to $500
One reasonable affordable custom (factory MTM) jacket: ranges roughly from $500 to $1500; tailoring is not always entirely included and sometimes you end up spending an extra $100 on tailoring.
One custom (bench-made MTM or bespoke) jacket: ranges roughly from $1000 to $10,000. You can get them for less but then you have to add the cost of plane tickets.
Three such jackets: $1500 to ... sky's-the-limit. Especially given risk of custom fit jackets and time sink to research, talk, do fittings, and iterate.
My closet is a little unusual in that every suit or jacket I have in it is either bespoke or bought off ebay. I'm not exactly an expert but I think it's fair to say I have some experience in this. And I can tell you that I wear my thrifted jackets regularly and happily. If my budget was effectivley infinite, sure, I probably wouldn't bother with second-hand stuff, but it's not and I see a lot of nice stuff online, so ....... Not only that, but buying inexpensive second-hand stuff lets me really figure out what I like and don't like for a very low cost.
So, why do I wear my thrifted jackets so much more often?
1. Numbers game: I simply have a lot more thrifted stuff than bespoke-for-me stuff
2. Risk: All the inexpensive jackets are basically "beaters." I don't want to wear my best jacket to a party where there's food, booze, and my baby who likes to puke. (She actually puked inside the buttonholes of one my jackets, thankfully one I got for $65 so a dry clean and I'm not concerned.)
3. Appropriateness: my thrifted jackets cover a much much wider range of use cases than my bespoke stuff (which is at least half due to the numbers thing.) If it's hot, cold, or the situation isn't very formal, that pretty much means I wear the thrifted stuff.
4. Stylistically, my thrifted jackets cover a much wider range than what I've commissioned, so there's a lot more room to play. I think if I want a jacket made with shirt-sleeve shoulders I should find myself an Italian tailor, which I haven't done. Or I just reach for one of several thrifted jackets ...
But let's cycle back to the quality thing. What do my custom jackets offer over thrifted jackets and does it matter much?
1. Better fit. Much better in a real sense. But: from an external point of view, good enough is good enough and very few can really tell if I am wearing a bespoke jacket or a jacket that's been tailored, as long as the jacket I started with (thrifted) was close enough and tailoring was decent. I can tell in the mirror and I can tell due to comfort and easy of movement, but the gap doesn't mean that the thrifted stuff is bad or uncomfortable, just less perfect and easy poses tend to be a bit more robot-like in some ways. (That said, this does apply to most brand new RTW stuff too, and quite a lot of factory-made custom stuff.) Caveat: this assumes you have a "normal enough" body and RTW/thrift + tailoring fits you well.
2. Better construction. Fully canvassed, but also how it's sewn, how much allowances are built in, what kind of canvas is used, collar shaping, etc. This matters as far as fit goes, and it matters as far as making changes in the future goes. For some types of jackets/suits it's pretty damn important (like your classic navy or charcoal in a fine worsted), for others a lot less so (unstructured jackets, heavy tweeds, etc.)
3. Precise choice over materials. Matters immensely when it matters. For example, if I want this exact specific charcoal color and weight, or this exact specific look and feel to the very fine blue, then it matters. But usually it doesn't matter except in that it makes me feel dope about myself. In other words, practical concerns aren't super high. What's one 260gm super 110s charcoal over another 250gm super 110s charcoal in an almost identical shade, practically speaking? There are fabrics you can only really get from precisely one mill, and there are fabrics that have plenty of competition that are equivalent enough that it hardly matters except in that it feels cool to pick it out yourself.
4. Precise choices of options. Online you will find many menswear blogs that are actually disguised company blogs / advertisements that insist you need custom suits in order to specify this option or that option. For the most part this is affected try-hard bullshit. Those writings have great SEO but it's "advice" from like 2007 that sucked even then. Let me name the common ones. Working buttonholes on the sleeves: neat, but ultimately not useful in any way. Very annoying for second-hand buyers. (So are fake working buttonholes.) Some RTW offers this. Pick stitching on the lapels: RTW often offers this but the "hammered nails" pattern is kind of annoying to my eye anyways. Contrast stitching: stay away, in most cases. Loud interior lining: often found on RTW plus you can get a jacket re-lined for not too much $ if you really wanted to, but also one of those things that's only nice for the wearer's feelings, and when the wearer starts to show it off it looks gaudy and try-hard. Hacking pockets: save them for sporting/country jackets like tweeds, where they're often found RTW. Barchetta chest pockets: common in RTW. Ticket pockets: Common in RTW. Loud buttons: trivial to replace after purchase. That is not to say that picking your own detailing is not a nice thing to do, but rather that most of the loud items that people online focus on are passé and that many of the details you want can be had RTW. If you have a specific vision you want to execute that isn't based on shit you read online and nobody makes it then yeah custom is the way to go, but most people don't have that vision.
Oh, and speaking of quality. I've bought some stinkers on ebay, but I've also bought some ringers. I don't think anyone can really impeach the quality of, for example:
Isaia jacket, dusty pink, silk/linen: $75
Rubinacci tweeds: $125, $125 (coincidental)
Rubinacci tweed, bespoke: $233
Brunello Cucinelli: $229
Cheo, bespoke, tweed: $190
Wazin, bespoke: $82 (too bad it doesn't fit me)
Unknown, tweed, bespoke, norfolk-inspired: $67
Luciano Barbera (Sartoriale), thick cashmere: $70
It's not like my advice was to go to the closest men's wearhouse and buy their cheapest jacket :P there's a lot of gold floating around there that would serve you well immediately, and you can replace it (or add to it) later with a higher budget if you so choose.
So how do you know the jacket will fit well if you buy online? Just measuring?
Measure your own that fits you well then compare with the measurements from the listing.
The full canvassing is what really gets me up; I am reluctant to buy a jacket unless I know it's fully canvassed.
I am going to check thrift shops in my area.
As @Küther said, measure your jackets that fit well, buy based on measurements. Understand what is relatively easy to tailor and what isn't. Don't get too enamored by things that won't fit well. It's still a dice roll but it's got good odds when you're experienced at it
I guess the shoulders and chest should already fit, but sleeves and waist can be taken in? I assumed it would be more difficult to get the right fit with tailored jackets. But good to hear
I get what you mean. But again, allow me to play devil's advocate a little.
1. Unstructured jackets are lovely for warm weather, and have no canvassing or fusing, so the topic is moot for those.
2. Heavier stuff like tweeds drape so well that canvassing is less important to good fit than you probably think. IMO/IME.
3. The industry largely moving to half-canvas jackets is, yes, a compromise, but it's honestly a pretty decent compromise. Half canvas can be perfectly adequate. Certainly the drape, silhouette, and fit I see from companies like suit supply, spier & mackay's non entry lines, higher end brooks brothers, the better ralph lauren lines, etc, are more than adequate despite (often) being half canvas. I wouldn't get hung up on it so much, I'd recommend you just look for good fit and if it fits well then don't worry overmuch about internal construction. Especially if you're not 100% sure what your preferred style is and don't know that you're buying something to "permanently" keep it. Shit jackets are still shit jackets, and there're some vintange, well made, fully canvassed stinkers out there ;)
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I also think unstructured jackets look better with casual wear
Thanks!
Unstructured sport coats run the gamut from really casual stuff like chino jackets and denim jackets, to stuff that looks significantly more formal.
For example ....
https://imgur.com/FU9tj21 -- much more olive in person - despite being linen, I think it looks best with a proper collared shirt.
This one is unstructured, I have it marked as 100% wool though I coulda sworn it was wool/silk or wool/cashmere, very soft. I think it looks best with a proper shirt as well. https://imgur.com/WXttH86
So to that end I don't agree that unstructured jackets look better with casual wear as a rule. I think some casual unstructured jackets look better with casual wear, but there are plenty of unstructured jackets that aren't all that casual.
I mean, the ones I linked are somewhat-to-fairly casual on the jacket spectrum, but not enough for me to want to wear them with a t-shirt, yeah?
Plus, some people, especially on hot weather, will even do the more classic suits like navy and charcoal as unstructured, because... it's hot. And most people don't really notice, they might think it's a softer look but not "oh wow what a strange suit, it's classic navy but the jacket is unstructured"
Also, most unstructured jackets that aren't trying to be super casual will still have some amount of structure in the shoulders, and of course the collar.
I phrased it poorly and didn't mean it as a rule. I meant if you're looking for a more casual jacket you can go for a unstructured one. So if OP wants to wear it casually I don't think the full canvas is such a necessity
So OP tell us when you buy your vintage tweed
Canvassing is way less important imo when buying stuff for so cheap on eBay. It’ll be hard to tell generally anyway for basically everyone
Yeah for me it comes down to cost. I am probably not gonna pay $75 on ebay for a fused jacket. However, I did win an auction for a fused jacket that cost me $5.... Plus like $15 shipping. Once I got it altered - waist, arm length, arm width - it looks pretty decent. I can sort of feel the deficincies in it, it's a cheapo Jos A Bank seersucker jacket, and I'll replace it eventually. But I still wear it because it's fine. My bias for what I will and won't pay of course is largely because I have enough jackets, really do not need more, and am only really adding stuff I "must have" rather than stuff that "fits and is cheap." When I was just filling out the closet with options I was a little less picky.
But it's not like people stop me and go "hey, that jacket fits like shit" or "a fused jacket huh? you gotta do better bro." Nobody can really tell but me and maybe some menswear folk with a great eye. It's subtly worse, and at a $20-shipped price it's perfectly okay I think
Truth is that our bodies are complex, moving, 3-dimensional objects, whose shape changes slightly daily and hourly. Literally hourly, really. You're never going to achieve true perfection with any suit or jacket, you just asymptotically approach it. There is a bar where you will have to decide - and it's different for anyone - that this fit is adequate, and anything above adequate is diminishing returns. How much you're willing to spend on it is up to you, but I suggest that a modestly sized wardrobe with two available jackets for any season is a good expenditure for someone who wears them several times a week for work, and a modest priced for adequacy is a very reasonable way forward.
I guess that is a lot of words to say that each person decides what quality means to them, and how much they are willing to spend, but I'd advise you to focus more on practicality today than quality with a several year delay.