In a blazer of glory

A fashionista might balk at the thought, but if you had to reduce your jackets–or, more properly, coats–to only three, which would they be? Nick Foulkes believes he has the answer

If you had to reduce your jackets to just three, which would they be? Nick Foulkes has the answer

AQUICK note before embarking on the invidious task of selecting only three jackets for life. Correctly, a jacket is not a jacket, but a coat, hence the preposition component of the word overcoat. Usually, this distinction is illustrated by retelling the story—perhaps apocryphal—of a young man beginning his first day at a venerable bank in the Square Mile and asking if he might remove his jacket. ‘Jacket?’ came back the thundering reply from a patrician financier. ‘Potatoes wear jackets. Gentlemen wear coats.’

Given the financial turmoil of the past decade or so, bankers probably have more on their minds than correct sartorial nomenclature and, given that formality, like so many things, isn’t what it used to be, I think it’s safe to call a coat a jacket.

The blazer

A friend who served in the Welsh Guards was always very punctilious in referring to his boating jacket, by which he meant his blazer. Being affiliated to this regiment meant that his double-breasted blazer— sorry, boating jacket—had eight buttons on its front and five on each cuff. The standard configuration is a front adorned with six buttons, two purely for show, with four at the cuff.

It should be noted that the Welsh Guards-spec has some powerful advocates, including no less a man than sometime Country Life Guest Editor and heir to the throne The Prince of Wales, who has done much to perpetuate the reputation for male elegance enjoyed by the House of Windsor.

The blazer—by which I mean the navy-blue garment, rather than the joyfully striped and piped examples that come out for the Henley Royal Regatta— is little short of miraculous and, with excessive formality on the decline, it has entered a golden age.

It’s often said of classics that they can be dressed up or down, but the blazer can be dressed front, back and sideways as well. It looks appropriate whether worn with a roll-neck pullover, a polo shirt, an open-necked shirt or a collar and tie. Similarly, jeans, flannels and cords all work with this chameleon of garments.

Old notions about restricting their wear to club, sporting or naval occasions have long gone and, if you feel self-conscious about brass buttons looking that bit too military, you can tone it down with horn or—even more chic— corozo-nut buttons.

The real dilemma is whether to opt for single-breasted (more international, easier to wear and, with pressed grey worsted trousers, almost a business uniform in France and Spain) or double-breasted for a more traditional, Anglophile look.

I’m fond of recalling the time, some years ago, when I boarded a flight operated by a South American carrier. As I turned right to head into economy, a steward grabbed my elbow and steered me into first class. I can only imagine that my double-breasted blazer imparted the bearing of an English gentleman.

The tweed jacket

“Jacket?” came back the thundering reply. “Potatoes wear jackets. Gentlemen wear coats”

My views on tweed aren’t everyone’s: the bigger the check and the bolder the pattern, the better I like it. Scottish Estate Tweeds, published by Johnstons of Elgin almost 25 years ago, is one of my favourite books and would be a part of my ideal desert-island library: stranded among the palms, its pages of coloured cloths would transport me to misty moors and craggy hills.

Personally, I don’t care for the cold and the wet, but the reason to wear tweed is the silver lining that compensates for the drab climate so often associated with our islands. Many are the years that have afforded me the opportunity to wear tweed jackets in every one of the 12 months of the year.

There are so many furbelows when it comes to the tweed jacket: patch pockets, bellows pockets, shooting backs, gun patches and what have you, although it’s often best to keep it simple and let the cloth speak for itself. I suggest a choice between a single-button style with suppressed waist and side vents—the look invented by Huntsman and eminently suited to wearing in town (in case you hadn’t noticed, we live in informal times, see above and below)—and the classic three-button, single-vent format. Unless you do actually intend to wear it shooting, forgo bellows pockets in favour of standard pockets with flaps, or slant pockets if you like a little raffishness.

A heavy tweed is indestructible and a friend for life. I still wear with pleasure my Terry Haste-tailored suit, made with 21oz Country Life tweed of heather over-check on a herringbone Lovat, which I designed in the mid 1990s. It has improved with age and the only attention it requires is the occasional visit to an alteration tailor.

My tip is to commission the best you can as a young man, in a cloth that you’re sure you can spend the rest of your life looking at, and ensure that the seams incorporate plenty of spare cloth, which gives scope for enlargement over the coming decades.