How to Wear a Sports Jacket With Jeans

The sports jacket is one of the best, most versatile items a man can have in his wardrobe. The benefits of this piece of clothing are myriad. First, it enhances your silhouette, broadening and heightening your shoulders, slimming your midsection, and giving you a more masculine appearance overall. Second, it offers a good number of pockets, so you can lighten the load on your trousers and have what you need ready at hand. And third, it affords you an opportunity to be a gentleman; should a lady friend become cold, you can remove your jacket and lend her its warmth.

Thus, any way to extend the times and places in which a sports coat may be worn is a win by me. And one such way is to pair one’s jacket with jeans.

Wearing jeans and a sports coat is a somewhat controversial move; it has been called “the business mullet” (formal up top, casual on the bottom) by its critics. And it’s true that done wrong, the look can come off quite poorly.

But executed well, pairing a sports coat and jeans results in a sharp, casual look that will easily become your go-to getup for a variety of situations. The key to pulling it off is simply to choose the right jeans, the right jacket, and the right accessories. How to do that is what we’ll be covering today.

The Overarching Principle for Successfully Pairing a Sports Jacket With Jeans

Too formal top + too casual bottom = business mullet.

The main reason the sports coat and jeans look fails is that the two pieces are too jarringly matched. Generally, the jeans are too casual, and the jacket is too formal. And often both pieces are too baggy. The solution of course is to make sure that top and bottom complement each other well — that your jeans are a little more formal, your jacket is a little more casual, and everything fits well. Remember, fit is the foundation of style!

Choose Your Jeans

This is the easiest part of the equation: choose clean, dark, well-fitted, trouser-esque denim. Avoid ripped, baggy, faded, and distressed jeans. Lighter denim can sometimes work, especially if you’re Robert Redford circa 1975. But to keep it simple, go with a nice, deep indigo.

Choose Your Sports Jacket

This is the area where you’ll have to exercise more discretion.

The first question that often arises is whether one’s coat has to be of the sports variety, or whether one can pair jeans with a suit jacket or blazer.

When it comes to wearing a suit jacket and jeans, the answer is, with very few exceptions, decidedly no. A suit jacket is more structured, spare in details, smooth in fabric, and formal in appearance; thus, paired with the casualness of jeans, the resulting look is simply too discordant and jarring.

The blazer jacket sits in-between the formality levels of the suit jacket and the sports jacket. It can work with jeans, especially if it is made of a thicker, more textured fabric like flannel or serge, rather than the fine worsted wool common to suit jackets. But it can still come off as too formal to pair well with denim.

When it comes to style, most men are better off adhering to fairly simple rules, rather than delving into nuances and exceptions, so when it comes to donning a jacket with your jeans, I recommend sticking solely with the sports coat. It’s hard to go wrong with it. The sports jacket was created in the 19th century for gentlemen who needed a more rugged, utilitarian garment for active pursuits like shooting, hunting, riding, and golf. The jacket was thus constructed of thicker fabrics and adorned with patch pockets for cartridges, elbow patches for durability, and slits in the back for mobility. These rustic, casual style details are what make the sports jacket a quite fitting companion for the rustic, casualness of denim. In fact, the more casual the jacket, the better it will complement your jeans.

For more on the differences between suit jackets, blazers, and sports coats, check out this article.

Here are a few things to generally look for in a sports jacket that will pair particularly well with jeans:

A jacket in a color that contrasts with your jeans (right), generally looks better than a jacket in a similar color (left).

• Unstructured and soft-shouldered.
• Casual, textured fabric. Linen or cotton in warmer months; tweed, corduroy, etc. for colder weather.
• Casual style details like patch pockets and elbow patches.
• Two buttons over three.
• Thin notch lapels over peak lapels.
• Well-fitted. Sports coats are cut roomier than suit jackets and blazers in order to allow for layering underneath. But you don’t want the fit to be too baggy.
• High color contrast with jeans. Sports coats, unlike suit jackets, aren’t supposed to match your pants, and in fact look best when they form a sharp contrast with them. Thus a light-colored sports coat generally looks best with dark denim.

The Accessories

jeans sports jacket coat formal

This is a good example of just about the peak of formality that can be reached with a sports jacket 

and jeans. Go any further and you risk trending into business mullet territory. Note how versatile this look is, though — it would be quite appropriate for  a variety of business casual functions and more.

The other pieces you pair with your sports coat and jeans will go a long way towards ensuring your getup works. You can choose to go with a slightly dressier look, or a more casual one, but your general goal is to dress the jacket down, rather than to dress your jeans up. There’s only so much dressing up of the look you can do before the elements of one’s outfit become discordant.

sports jacket coat jeans button-down shirt pink

A crisp, open-collar button-down looks right at home under a sports jacket. Image from Articles of Style.

Shirt. Go with a casual, open-collar button-down. A crisp oxford looks good with a slightly more formal sports jacket, while a denim or chambray button-down goes well with a very casual one. Checked and striped shirts often look sharp. Wearing a t-shirt underneath a sports coat is almost never advisable, as its casual nature clashes too much with the jacket.

layering sports jacket coat jeans

Examples of layering possibilities.

Sweater/vest. A layered look goes great with jeans, so don’t hesitate to pull a v-neck sweater or casual vest over your dress shirt, and under your jacket.

Shoes. When dressing up the look, choose a brown pair of brogues or oxfords. For a step down from there, go with leather loafers or double monk strap shoes. More casual still, would be to don dress/work boots (like my personal favorite, the Wolverine 1,000 mile) or chukkas. And of course cowboy boots with jeans and a sports coat is a classic look that transcends categories and works well in certain regions of the country.

textured casual tie with sports jacket coat

A knit tie works well in matching the rustic quality of both jacket and jeans.

Tie. A tie is an unnecessary addition to what is a relatively casual look, but it can be pulled off, as long as the tie is heftier and more casual, and thus complements the rest of your getup. Think textured and thicker — beefier wool over shiny silk.

Pocket Square. Another sharp addition if you’re going for a snazzier ensemble. Just like with ties, choose a thicker, more rustic fabric rather than silk, and it’s usually best to go with a simple, low-profile fold rather than a puffy, flowing one.

In incorporating all of these elements, stick with a consistent theme; that is, if you’re going for a slightly dressier look, rock brogues, a crisp oxford, and a pocket square. If you’re going for a more casual look, pair leather dress/work boots with a chambray shirt and no tie.

When to Wear a Sports Coat and Jeans



Source:

http://www.artofmanliness.com/2015/09/23/how-to-wear-a-sports-jacket-with-jeans/