What is a sport jacket fabric? How would you define one?
There is a lot of confusion out there on this casual jacket fabric – which is understandable as since it's inception the sport jacket has been an orphan jacket and the word has come to encompass a wide range of meanings.
Originally a suit jacket worn as a mismatched jacket by young men participating in sport, the sport jacket as a garment made without matching trousers was pioneered by the tennis great Rene Lacoste and other stylish men in the 1920 and 30s.
Approximately 90 years later, there is still confusion on the fabrics. Maybe I can help.
Following these guidelines can help you quickly determine if the jacket fabric you'e looking at will make a versatile sports jacket.
1. The fabric should not look like a suit jacket fabric – skip navy blue, shades of grey, and black solids. Keep your trousers grey – not your sport jackets.
2. Avoid striped fabrics – stripes mean business, and sport jackets are stylish casual menswear.
3. Fabrics with a rough or napped texture can be excellent choices as they help distinguish the fabric from worsted wool suit fabrics.
4. Patterns in the fabric and a mixture of colors is a great start – but refrain from selecting a jacket that's too memorable unless you own a few classic style already.
Fabric Gallery of Sport Jacket Choices – Courtesy of A Tailored Suit
RAW Transcript
Sport Jacket Fabric Overview
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All right. I am going to be going over Sport Jacket Fabrics. And this is a general overview. As you can see I have got a lot of fabrics laid out here. They are pretty layered. So I am going to spend some time going through each of them. And so let me go ahead and start off with – let us start off with the tweeds. Right here we have got a Donegal tweed. And Donegal tweed is interesting because it basically is – it's rough wearing like any of the tweeds. They've got a bit of a thicker softer [0:00:31] [Inaudible] feel. These are going to be medium to heavy weight fabrics and what we are talking is everything here is going to weight more than about 12 ounces.
And so we are going to see some things actually up to probably I would say 14 maybe even 15 ounces here. And these are going to be heavier fabrics. I don't – none of these are actually Harris tweeds. I pull most of my tweeds from a Italy. I like them. They're a little bit more light weight and I find it that's more for at least three seasoned wear. But the thing that you'll notice about the tweeds besides the texture and the weight is the complicated design. And I love tweeds because whenever you wear these fabrics it is clear that these are a sport jacket. They're not going to have a matching pair of trousers.
So here we've got some of the Donegal tweeds and this – this – what I mean by Donegal is that the actual patterns here, so we can see we got a lighter fabric going one way and then darker fabrics in a mixed. So this right here would be great for a man with sandy blond hair, the same right here maybe a little bit blondish brown hair. And here a man with medium brown hair maybe a little bit of ruddy reddish skin. Also a man with darker brown hair could pull this off, a man with black hair could pull this as well because we see we have got the – the little bit darker specs in there, but a man with darker hair, black hair his going to look great in this.
And this – because these fabrics are going to better frame the face, that's why I'm suggesting them. Okay. And this would be for a man that let's say he is getting a little bit of a gray. And the white light color it is going to work well with him with the colors in his hair and additionally a man with black hair could pull this off as well. Dark colored hair man this would be a great a – maybe even with a medium complected skin. I – I a dark – let us say a dark color – colored a hair man with let us say an African-American man with medium to dark skin this would look great as well.
Blues, very versatile both of these right here. This – and you going to see this is pretty standard as I say this for the lighter colored hair man although it would still work for a man with dark colored hair and dark colored skin, but this is really going to look great on that type of a man. And it is going to – this a man with sandy blond hair could pull this off, but he is going to be a bit over powered by the dark – by the dark contrast especially if you will wear this with a light colored shirt. Well, this with a white shirt is going to have a less contrast, but – and it is going to not this over powering, but it is to look great with his light-colored hair.
Okay, I have talked about the cells where this is one of my favorite fabrics. It's got a bit of a reddish brown tenting very a – an earth tone, just a very – very nice feeling as well, in fact, the more I touch this, the more the more in danger I become of getting this fabric. But reds? The – the thing with reds is they're not as versatile because they're going to be remembered more, but because they were an earth tone because this has a lot of brown field to it, it's going to be still pretty versatile in terms of the clothing that will match. It's not versatile because people will remember it, but it's versatile in terms of you could actually wear this with a pair of dark denim jeans or gray flannelled trousers, very versatile fabric, in terms of which you can wear up again, people will remember it.
This one right here another great fabric for a man with medium brown hair. It can go actually it is kind of a middle fabric, very versatile there. And see we get in to a – start getting the more. Now busier patterns like this are going to make this jacket less versatile, harder to match, we're going to be careful with the shirts. You match it with, go for solids or stripes. You can see this – this – ok here – here we start to get a bit more of a pattern in this, these are going to be great fabrics for a – yeah for – for a man that wants to introduce a bit of color on this one, has a bit of a semi-solid pattern in it. This would be a great for a man with black hair, a dark colored hair. All right, now listen we have got a herringbone weave, can you see that? So we got a herringbone weave. And this – this is a semi-solid – this would be great again foe a man with a sandy light colored brown hair, blond hair, this would go great with him…
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…even a man – if you had grayish hair, also you can bring in this. Blondish brown hair, darker brown hair possibly even black colored hair. This one you can actually, a man with actually a white hair, or a graying hair, this would go great. So normally the blues wouldn't work for me because it has a bit of spotting. You can see that right there they had bit of spotting a white. That is going to work well for him.
This would go great for an – for an older man who does not want to be over powered by a lot of color, but the texture and kind of – though – though there is like a little bit of a – I see a little bit of grayish blue in there. And that would work well to pull color out of your eyes. And then this room right here, it is not just a little bit of a random reds and blues, these types of fabrics are very hard wearing. And I – I would say though for the younger man.
All right. Now these tweed fabrics, these are the ones that are going to have check patterns in them. And you want to wear something like this if you want to add weight to your profile. So if you are a thinner man, a tall lanky man or just a regular sized medium built man, you want to go for something like this, if you're heavy set. You want to be careful with patterns like this because the lines going across; lines that go horizontal are going to kind of to draw their eyes out. And that is not what you want, you want a more stream line look, a look that goes up and down.
And you will noticed it again, this would be great for a man with darker hair, here a man lighter colored hair, sandy blond, lighter colored even gray hair, this is a very – very blue fabric. Again, but for the light, this would look great on a man with blondish, sandy blond hair, light-colored hair with a – let us say a – a white shirt or even a pink short, you know, something with – maybe even with a bit of texture or a pattern in it. And then go with an orange tie, that would look great.
Lighter colored hair I – can you get the pattern. All the sudden man with a – man with gray hair, man with a medium brown because of the brown hair that is even will be able to pull that out. This is going to be for – now this blue I talked about was for the man that has lighter colored hair. This is the blue for the man with the darker colored hair. So it just – just definitely black – a black gentlemen who's got a black hair, medium to dark colored skin, this is going to look great on him, if he actually had a really light colored skin you could pull this one off or – or this way.
Again both of these are going to be for the man with the dark colored hair. And a man lighter less contrast, lighter complexion, definitely for a man with light contrast you see the green, and the lavender, the great thing about this very unique fabric. And if you were to wear this with a lavender shirt, it would really draw out the color. All right you can see we are now bringing in the herringbone. And you see this herringbone we actually got a check pattern in it, but it still got the – the herringbone pattern.
So you can actually – herringbones are very common. And if you wanted something that didn't have any of the check pattern in it, we could find that as well. As dark colored again for a man with a dark hair, dark brown hair, I am not a big fun of black tweeds, but I know someone like them. These greens amazing very unique it is got a lot of color, a lot of a – a lot of things you could wear with this. This – this brown here, this brownish top very nice. Here we got a little bit of green, gray, not – not a big fan of the grays, this blue very complicated. And then right there see, so these fabrics right here are great for sports jackets, but there are always going to be very in formal. They are very casual fabrics, probably because are not only in the texture but of the complicated pattern, in just the overall feeling for tweed.
So, if wanted to go with a bit formal of a sports jacket, that is when you are going to go and you are going to look it, something that is made out of the worsted wool and bribe – what I mean worsted wool, I mean, it is like a – it's a tighter woven yarn. And these are going to be more delicate, so here we see a bird's eye, as it looks a lot of little bird's eyes. These are gray, I am not a big fan on them in gray, but getting a bird's eye in a blue or a darker – this bird's eye are very nice. You can clearly see it – it actually, it look like a blazer from a distance, but it would be a truly sports jacket.
All of a sudden we start getting the Glen checks with check patterns. Again, I'm not a huge fan of the grays as a sports jacket…
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…because I believe a sports jacket – I stay away from grays because I want to keep the trousers gray, and – and every – then the sports jacket, I stick with the blues and browns those are my two favorite colors, but you know again reds, anything that kind of various close to that family it is going to work for you.
One of my favorites right here this is a Glen check with a – in a dark blue great for a sports jacket that will often be a mistaken for a blazer. And here we've got that same fabric and a little bit lighter blue, in fact, the jacket that you will see me in an often times is made from this fabrics right here. This one has got a brownish – brownish color to it and now we start running into a nails head, which is very similar to a bird's eye, but the pattern it – it's less of an eye looking it basically a nail head it's what it looks like. This blue one is very strong in addition into this brown is actually it makes a very sleek amazing looking jacket.
And then we start running into shark skin. And sharks skin, light gray it works out as a pretty good sports jacket. Sharks skin, it has a rougher look to it, so if you are going to go with the shark skin I would look at a blue, I would look at a tan or a brown. Do not go with the stripe, stripes are for suits, so any type of chalks stripe, pen stripe, don't go with a sports jacket like that. Not going to be as versatile.
I will talk quickly about Houndstooth fabrics, these are for your busy fabrics and they are ones that – this color right here you can find them, but I do not normally recommend them, I – they've have got a very strong English feel to them and some men do ask them, but the Houndstooth is a very busy pattern. And I believe it's – it's something that's not nearly versatile. I will recommend for maybe for third or fourth sports jacket possibly going with the Houndstooth if you really like that fabric.
Over here we've got a mohair; so mohair is very light weight. You can actually make a suite from it. But I like this mohair in a blazer, as – excuse me – especially a summer blazer this is going to be very light weight, very breathable. And then these colors, it actually works very well as a sports jacket. Very clearly this is not part of a suite, not a big fan of this color, too close to gray. Now here is one of my favorites, hopsack, you probably have seen this brown hopsack fabric, because I have a jacket made from this, but as you can see hopsack comes in a wider range.
It is a very loose weave; uses a larger yarn. And the great thing about hopsack is it's very breathable. I like to make this kind of jackets online great for summer wear. And the texture and the weave just makes it a bit more casual, although you can go in to a darker colored hopsack, such as this navy or this blue. And it is going to be – it just looks amazing in a blazer. All right, well we've covered a wide range of sports jackets. The key to remember about the sport jacket fabrics is that, you do not want them to look like your trousers, you want them to be clearly separate that not to look like a suite that it came off of a suite jacket or there are -they're a blazer.
A sport jacket is for sport. So these are going to be rough. There are other little things you can do on the style and I've talked about that elsewhere. But no, don't be afraid to get a sports jacket and to wear it, wear until it wears out.
Okay, take care. Bye-bye.
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