Can You Wear A Sports Coat To A Wedding?

As a student I’ve been looking for a way to incorporate classic menswear into my closet without looking too out of place. Sport coats, being cheaper, more durable, and more casual than suits are a great option. They have a academia look to them and are abundant in thrift stores. I particularly like your outfit here Mr. Schlueter.

I took a Lyft ride to my work a couple days ago, and my driver was wearing a sport coat. He and I had a nice conversation about how you don’t find many people wearing these kinds of things anymore. Usually, people nowadays don’t dress up unless they really have to. I’m one of those that loves to dress nice.

In the beginning of my journey I was as well going for suits but found out quick that I really prefer combination and today I just like to combine chinos with a sport coat. As well the reason behind that is that in my work environment that already counts as dressed up. Enjoyed this one a lot, keep up the good works you guys and stay safe and healthy.

I guess its just the environments I frequent but I find that having a suit vest is just as versatile then a sport coat but I can instantly dress it up with a tie and a suit jacket. It means I save money, closet space, and means I can dress up and down in a fraction of the time be it settling for a long session in the office or suddenly meeting with customers or executives.

I have found sport coats or blazers to be more useful for me than suits ever have been. Suit trousers always need so much taken in at the waist that the pockets end up being oddly placed. No, not willing to pay for bespoke. Sport coats and blazers make it very simple to get jackets that fit to work with trousers that fit. They are the Swiss Army knife of menswear. What do you need it to be for the occasion? Whatever it is, you can make it happen, with the ability to use a wide color pallet in more than just ties & squares. I think it highly plausible that most men could make it through a wide variety of life’s occasions with some sport coats and complementary pairings for the majority along with a tuxedo for the truly formal occasions.

A major advantage of a Sports Coat for Business dressing is that with today’s weight and size limit on carry on luggage one can create considerable dress options by flying in a plain colour suit, where the trousers can be worn with a plain pattern sports coat that can be packed into a standard size soft construction flight bag. That leaves enough space to pack a second light weight suit, along with a pair of wool trousers that can be worn with the sport coat and possibly a tie for formal business meetings. And from decades of experience I know that their is still room in the flight bag for a pair of chinos and a lightweight wool jumper. While I would sometimes pack a second pair of dress shoes, these days I mainly pack a pair of premium quality leather driving shoes. While they of course look smart when worn with chinos, I mainly were them in place of slippers, when I am relaxing in a hotel room in my pyjamas perusal TV after I have raided the very expensive fridge/bar. While I regularly travelled around Australia on three day business trips, with two overnight stays, by carefully selecting the weight of the fabric in the coats and packing an extra plain white shirt, along with a couple of ties, packed inside the slip-on/driver shoes, I could extend my trip to cover up to 5 days of business meetings, while being dressed in a distinctive professional style every day. Phil.

Great article. I think it’s good especially for beginners with lower budget like me to buy a high quality suit in vintage secondhand and than combine trousers or jacket with other jacket or trousers in different color/pattern. It has to match well of course. So you have more or less causal quality outfits for less money. But I think gentleman’s already mentioned this in some of their articles before. Btw. when I’m wearing the sport coat is it necessary that the cuffs of shirt were out of the sleeve as they at suit should be? I’m always not sure.

Hi Im starting my sartorial journey and I was looking for a second hand tweed sport coat… I know a few quality hallmarks but when looking on the web its a bit more challenging to differentiate a cheap piece vs a nice quality sport coat… cool you point me some labels that are a safe purchase for a quality garment? Thanks for the help!

There was a time when I wore a suit and tie everyday to the office. Those days for most places of work are gone. I can wear s classic sport coat with dress slacks and dress shirt and not be too overpowering in our sloppy casual business world. My father, bless his soul, thaught me how to dress like a gentleman. I would always ask him I looked when I got properly dressed. He, being a man who lived as a young man in the 30’s and 40’s, tell I look sharp as a razo

I think that starting with a navy or grey suit is only good if the buyer actually intends to wear the suit outside formal events. However, having a couple of sport coats can in fact fulfill the role of a less formal suit. Especially today when “business casual” is an acceptable dress code. Pair it with chinos or dark jeans and you’re (mostly) covered. For formal occasions like weddings, graduation ceremonies or funerals it’s still best to own a black suit.

If you’re going to own only one piece of tailoring, make it a business suit. If you’re building a collection, start with a business suit. There are situations where there are just no alternatives. And obviously, if you’re required to wear a suit to work every day for work, make sure you have enough of a rotation. But even most professional offices are relaxing their dress code. And they probably work in a wider range of situations outside of work. But I think more importantly than this is that I tend to wear through worsted wool suit trousers much faster than their jacket. And then if you can’t find that exact fabric again, the orphaned jacket can become unwearable. Sportcoats and odd trousers avoid this problem and both tend to come in harder wearing fabric, so each last longer. You can also mix and match, creating more outfits with fewer pieces. So when you can wear an item more times, in more situations, with more other things in your wardrobe, that’s where it makes sense to spend more money.

I think something to consider in this article that wasn’t touched upon was the prevalence of Flannel shirts. Flannel and/or plaid shirts are most definitely an indicator of the 21st century man and I dont think “paterned” necessarily hits that mark in terms of the prominence of a pattern that flannel/plaid/tartan is. Sven can say all he wants about a “passing trend” for such shirts and why not to invest in them, but myself as a young (<20 Y/O) Man, I dont see any reason why they'd shift away from the modern wardrobe, especially considering the amount of automation in today's workplace. In this regard, sport coats are almost Necessarily superior in most regards to a suit in that the versatility of it implies that You as a person are less stuck-up or bourgeois, potentially, than someone wearing a 3-piece suit or a morning dress. In a suit you are expected to do paper work and precious little else, and if youre not already at the Board Of Directors at a company, I dont think that's applicable to the people who GG might be suggesting to wear a suit to work everyday. With the inequality rampant in Western society today I think that's an important point to make that wearing a suit in full every day might be a bit off-colour (metaphorically speaking) as suits have pretty much Always been an indication of a Ruling Class of some sort. In this regard, suits are a Symbol, not only of status but of class as well, and while class is not something to be scared of it is nonetheless somewhat to be conscious of in a workplace and to be considerate of in a work environment where other people aren't as fortunate as yourself. I appreciate that GG is about Classic Men's Wear, but saying that im Entirely sure that "classic mens wear" was from the 1890-1900, no it's fair to say that it changed as time went on. Regardless of what I or You think of it, a white tuxedo is a staple of American weddings now and it has a place in that tradition of men's wear. To just come back to the point, I think men's wear has more than just "sport coat and patterned shirts" to say regarding Modern Men's Dress. All in all, though this might seem like a rant, this article is thoroughly useful as a source and it definitely holds some merit regardless of the time in the decade of 2020 in which this article is posted. That said, I think contextualising Men's Dress and why & how it came about is valuable, and I think a article on being Bourgeois and mingling it with dressing well wouldn't go amiss.

Patterns that appeal to me in a jacket are often horrific as pants. Patterned pants in general aren’t my thing. I also like nice shoes, and bold shoes and bold pants don’t jive. Suits look “put together” because they are very consistent from top to bottom. Rule of thumb for me is a suit is for occasions where you are talking about someone or something other than yourself. Business, weddings, church. But social events where you are likely to talk about yourself and your interests, I like to go for something like a blazer or sport coat because there’s a decent chance I take it off to do something like dance or do stuff.

Rafael at 6:33 Mixing Checks and Stripes… with a super-bold, rope-stripe, double-breasted suit, no less. This is not an honest way of depicting suits with no tie. You don’t even show the matching pants because it doesn’t even matter if this was suit – it would be wrong on many levels without even considering whether it was a suit. If it was a solid Navy, 2-button single-breasted or a three-roll-two, with a medium point collar on a solid white shirt, it would be fine. Nevermind that you can make a suit out of any material that you make a sportcoat out of. You can own an unstructured Tweed suit, for example.

Nice article John, I particularly liked the look of the sports jacket with the black sweater underneath. Of course, the other options you profile, look quite nice as well. Gotta love those Allen Edmond Strands in Walnut. My favorite shoe as well. They are so versatile. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this topic. Job well done!

Amazing, a great article showing a variety of looks within certain pieces love it! The only thing I will dare to point out(and it may be MY ISSUE)is the 2 tone belt on the first outfit, to me it looked too young looking. Anyway, you look delicious in all the outfits. Thanks for teaching us ways to improve on our looks past the age of 40!

I have a question I hope someone can help me with! I have what some would call a bird chest lol so it’s hard for me to find a off the rack sports coat. Does anyone have any idea of what brands I should look for that are affordable and are going to last!?! If I’m going to have to pay a decent amount to have the jacket and then even more to have it fixed at the tailor I want to make sure it’s going to be worth the money I spend.. Butttt keep in mind it has to be affordable lol. I’m a father of 3 with 2 step sons and Christmas is right around the corner so my needs go to the back of the line…. Any advice is greatly appreciated guys! Thanks again!

Fantastic and I will be adding a dark grey sport jacket to my wardrobe (can only wear it in North Vietnam) … crap I live my entire life in hot central Florida and not I’m in even hotter Vietnam. HA! I did disagree with the sneakers worn with a sport jacket. Love Seinfeld but was never a fan of this fusion of styles. I liked your belts but the one worn earlier in article is way way too long and I was obsessing over it. I should get over this since if you saw the belts worn by Vietnamese males (I live in VN) you wouldn’t believe it. They buy belts that can wrap around their waist two times. They never have them cut? It grinds on my last nerve HA! Finally, impressed with the pants. This is a debate in itself. I see professional male models with goof dork pants that are too long and buckling all the time in American fashion. On the other end, the millenials are now wearing pants that are either high-water short or rolled up and without socks to look sorta Tom Sawyer or they want to walk in the surf (with dress shoes?) … I am proud to say I have given up socks here in Vietnam. It’s hotter than my home state of Florida and just gotta do what we can do stay cool here in South Vietnam. It’s hot and it has a rainy season which will soak your socks anyway and/or make you wish you’d left them at home when they do get soaked and you have to take them off. In Vietnam socks are horrible and don’t care for them! Thanks for the great article. I don’t believe I can do the sneakers … just seems like an insult to otherwise great outfit you put together.

Nice but girls nobody pay attention this kind of fashion they prefer bad boy fashion. I have a co worker she is very pretty and hot and I’m just an average good looking guy i have tattoos and i work out i take care of my body. I only wear levis 501 and 505 with a simple t shirt or polo shirt and a simple sneakers. This girl fell in love with me.