Sportcoat recommendation

Hmm. Can't speak to ready-to-wear, but I'd shoot for one navy blazer with horn buttons, one brown tweed jacket, and one other tweed jacket in beige, green, blue, whatever.

Camel hair in it's natural color. Classic day sportcoat for fall-winter-spring. If not this, then a black cashmere blazer and you have a three season stroller if you get peak lapels and it's a great excuse to wear black and white Glen plaid trousers.

 

Black and white herringbone. Works day and night for everything this side of formalwear or lounge suit.  Find one in cashmere and the chicks will dig it.

 

Navy and black small to medium check or small houndstooth, Better than the ubiquitous navy blazer for everything this side of the yacht club. Black and navy herringbone are an acceptable replacement. Again, cashmere if you can find it. If not, a super something weave, because you aren't sitting on it except in emergency situations. The perfect night club jacket when a black blazer isn't you.

 

All single breasted with horn buttons.

 

Your fourth one is a summer weave linen or tropical wool. Pick a color, any color, and use a skeleton lining to let the breeze through.

 

Stay away from obvious tweeds, they do nothing for most people and they border on costume.

 

If you want something different from one of the big three above, get a bold windowpane and never, ever match the overcheck with anything other than the dots or neat pattern on a tie; but never match the shirt, the tie background, or the ps to the overcheck color because this is what noobs do.
 

Cheers!

You worry that tweeds border on costume, but suggest a black cashmere blazer with peak lapels that can be worn as a stroller? Thats beyond ludicrous.

 

The difference being that few in this day and age would recognize a stroller as anything other than a black sport coat, but everyone has some recognition of tweed being the costume of tenured professors when made into a suit or one seeking tenure when worn with jeans, cords, or odd trousers. And lacking that vision, they might see a school teacher or weekend warrior wearing a "dad" jacket with whatever pants happened to be clean that day.

 

If a costume isn't recognized to be a costume, then is it?

 

It's not like a stroller is a cutaway or tweed jacket with immediate recognition. Or do you believe differently?

The Fitzgerald line is fine if you don't mind center vents (as opposed to side vents). Personally I abhor them, whether on suits or odd jackets, so I don't wear Fitzgerald items. Brooks Regent jackets are slim-fitting and double-vented so I personally prefer them.

Your first sport coat should be a navy blazer. Either single or double breasted is fine. I like metal buttons, though I prefer something in the silver range to gold / bronze. YMMV and the more common gold / bronze buttons are perfectly classic and will look fine. Some people don't like metal buttons on blazers (MaFooFan presumably suggested horn, which is a nice alternative to metal, for this reason), so I'd regard that as personal choice. Try things on and think about the look that you like best with the navy blazer.

After that, you have a decent array of options. Brown tweed is pretty classic, but I also like a black and white houndstooth or herringbone pattern. Other tweeds can be nice as can a camel color. Make sure you like the look of everything you buy (I know that sounds obvious, but sometimes people buy a sport coat ecause they're told it's a foundational item for a wardrobe and end up not wearing it, so know yourself). I disagree with the idea that tweed borders on custume; I think it looks great. Personally I'd avoid the black peak lapel blazer (maybe as a 10th odd jacket but certainly not in the first 3).

At some point, you need to think about warmer weather odd jackets depending on climate where you are. It may not be the worst thing to have your blue blazer, either a brown tweed or one of the houndstooth jackets I described as your second odd jacket, and maybe a summer odd jacket (something in linen, cream, tan, a blue slightly lighter than navy).

Good luck.

Tweeds aren't costume, though you should be conscious of the climate you live in if you consider buying one. 
 

 

+1... I love tweed. But I can't wear it most of the year. It just doesn't stay cold enough here in winter to rock it most of the time!

It's very easy and cheap to replace the buttons, so don't sweat that too much.

In general, texture, patterns, patch pockets, swelled/double stitched edges, non-matching buttons, etc make a jacket look less like an orphaned suit coat. Basically anything that makes it more casual than a suit coat.

Does anyone have a picture that shows what "swelled/double stitched edges" and "taped seams" are?

For a very large selection which is well-illustrated in their website
check out O'Connells. You may not be interested in their uber-trad
style, but their website is an excellent tutorial on sport coat fabrics:

http://www.oconnellsclothing.com/home.php?cat=250

Approximate location?

Also, it seems that nobody has mentioned gray. That color (in a medium or dark shade) is almost required in a versatile collection of sportcoats.

The general opinion of this forum is that gray is hard to pair and rarely looks good.