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How many Sports Coats?

thedavidstarr

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Climate change may affect this. More lighter weight 3 season items. Or more spring summer pieces
 

DapperPhilly

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I have 12 sport coats currently and have recently sold one.

Even before COVID I had little call to wear a sport coat. I work for myself and when my wife and I have events (2 to 3 a year) I usually wear a suit.
Do I have a disease?
I also have 7 suits and a formal tux, again with rare need to wear.
I do have a disease!
Please don't ask how many dress shirts I have....
 

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smittycl

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Reminds me of this news story from 2014 where an Aussie news anchor wore the same suit for a year and no one seemed to notice. He was pointing out the different rules women are held to.

 

pkincy

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When I retired I cleaned out the closet quite a lot. I did keep 20 that I just couldn't part with. Pure Blue Blazer's with shiny buttons....only kept two of those. Brioni's in 2 button and 3 button styles. It is the Kiton odd jackets that are hard to give away. Their material is so different jacket to jacket and is so comfortable and has such a great hand, that I expect they will hang here forever. And hang is what they do during a pandemic. Now that I have had my second vaccination and that there are noises of restaurants opening more indoors and events that may be held this summer, hopefully they will see some more wear.

Edit: Thanks to this thread I actually got up and tried on a few to make sure they still could be worn given the "Pandemic Spread." Thankfully they can. I also realized I did give away a Kiton blue blazer. But it was the first Kiton I bought and unfortunately spread took me out of that 52r Eu sizing some years ago. Today it is more 54L eu size or even 56L in some cases.
 

smittycl

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I have a dozen or so sport coats with a mix of winter, summer, and in-between. Also, three Navy blazers with one summery hopsack, one three season wool, and one DB for whenever I can fit it in. Nice to have options but almost all are purely for the fun of it and I could easily get by with less if I had to.
 

BoydsShoes

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You can own just one, a solid navy sport coat, and it would be fine.
. . and if that is not enough, buy a 3 season weight and a winter weight (might as well be comfortable). Then confuse people by having different buttons on the two weights. If you like tweed and live in cooler climates, buy one that really appeals to you.
 

classicalthunde

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In the before times I would wear a sport coat 3-4x per week to work in the fall/winter/spring. I'm currently in the process of culling and re-adjusting my wardrobe, but at my peak I had 3 tweeds (olive Donegal, brown and grey herringbone) and two navy blazers (one hopsack w/ patch pockets, one traditional gold button J. Press blazer)

I feel like it was a good number that offered a lot of versatility, allowed me to give items a rest in between wears, and I could avoid repeating the same jacket within the same weak if I wanted to
 

Nobilis Animus

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Climate change may affect this. More lighter weight 3 season items. Or more spring summer pieces

According to the weather networks round here, the Gulf Stream is actually getting sluggish, so we should see more cold in the northern hemisphere shortly. I'll keep my heavy suits for a while longer, thanks.

Reminds me of this news story from 2014 where an Aussie news anchor wore the same suit for a year and no one seemed to notice. He was pointing out the different rules women are held to.


I've often thought this was more of a rule of their own making. Plenty of ladies in the past stressed the importance of a small handful of outfits that could be alternated or worn in different environments, just as the men did. It is only in modern times that we see the divergence of expectations.

I believe it is due to a combination of competition among women themselves, and a lack of dressing standards among men. There is no earthly reason why men who work in offices should have to revert to a drab uniform of shapeless navy suits for everything, beyond the fact that this particular moment in classy men's fashion was seized upon by middling businessmen in the 20th century and mercilessly applied up to the present day.

When personal additions such as inconspicuous jewellery, ties that inspire something more than funerary connotations, and other small variations are frowned upon or result in bullying and orders to change, I'd say that both men's and women's choices today are both restricted. They're simply limiting in different directions.
 

thedavidstarr

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I have 12 sport coats currently and have recently sold one.

Even before COVID I had little call to wear a sport coat. I work for myself and when my wife and I have events (2 to 3 a year) I usually wear a suit.
Do I have a disease?
I also have 7 suits and a formal tux, again with rare need to wear.
I do have a disease!
Please don't ask how many dress shirts I have....
Ha
Someone told me that shopaholic behavior means buying 7 of something rather than just 1:)
 
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I believe the man’s sport coat is the equivalent of a women’s purse. Even though I try to minimize the things I take with me. My sport coat usually carries my phone, car FOB, comb, fountain pen, wallet (never in my back pocket) and a small coin purse. In my pants I carry a small pocket knife and folded bills in a money clip. Getting to how many, I have my summer sport coats and winter sport coats. Depending on the season, one batch is readily available while the non-seasonal batch await in the basement storage closet until their time. I also cover a variety of materials like leather, cotton, linen, Faux leather, etc. And of course, I have them by colors; Navy, beige, browns, greens. In all I have about 25. Broken down by season it’s about 12 or 13. I realize this is a bit much, and I’m controlling myself from getting more and also getting rid of the ones showing excessive wear, but I so agree with Joe Schmoe’s comment that “He wears clothes that fit well and look well put together, which make him look better than 90% of office workers and tries to brighten everyone's day by looking good and show the world that you care about your appearance.” That is also my mantra. And yes, I frequently receive stupid comments like “going to a job interview”, “where’s the party” but I also get those pleasant comments about how well dress I look (usually from women who comment on how they wish their husband would dress better).
 

Captain O

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I believe the man’s sport coat is the equivalent of a women’s purse. Even though I try to minimize the things I take with me. My sport coat usually carries my phone, car FOB, comb, fountain pen, wallet (never in my back pocket) and a small coin purse. In my pants I carry a small pocket knife and folded bills in a money clip. Getting to how many, I have my summer sport coats and winter sport coats. Depending on the season, one batch is readily available while the non-seasonal batch await in the basement storage closet until their time. I also cover a variety of materials like leather, cotton, linen, Faux leather, etc. And of course, I have them by colors; Navy, beige, browns, greens. In all I have about 25. Broken down by season it’s about 12 or 13. I realize this is a bit much, and I’m controlling myself from getting more and also getting rid of the ones showing excessive wear, but I so agree with Joe Schmoe’s comment that “He wears clothes that fit well and look well put together, which make him look better than 90% of office workers and tries to brighten everyone's day by looking good and show the world that you care about your appearance.” That is also my mantra. And yes, I frequently receive stupid comments like “going to a job interview”, “where’s the party” but I also get those pleasant comments about how well dress I look (usually from women who comment on how they wish their husband would dress better).

Let them eat cake. Dress like a man, not like a little boy. You're an adult. They are in a perpetual state of "arrested development". The men that continue to dress as they did in grammar school can live like that as much as they want.
 
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CMJ

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It’s not so much how many you need to own but how many you’ll regularly wear. I have about 15, but for various reasons (formality, comfort, ease of pairing, the fact that my weight fluctuates, etc.) only 3 or 4 of them are in regular rotation. The rest just sit there in my closet, wondering what they did wrong.

Anyhoo, there’s no need to own this many. Just have enough that you can afford to rest and air them regularly and you’ll be fine. Very few people will notice or care if you’re cycling through the same few sport coats. The only time I’ve ever noticed anyone overwearing an item of clothing is when my best friend showed up at the pub in the same sport coat about a dozen times on the trot, and I only noticed because I gave it to him and I knew it was the only one he owned. Nobody else would give a crap.
 

CMJ

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I believe the man’s sport coat is the equivalent of a women’s purse. Even though I try to minimize the things I take with me. My sport coat usually carries my phone, car FOB, comb, fountain pen, wallet (never in my back pocket) and a small coin purse. In my pants I carry a small pocket knife and folded bills in a money clip. Getting to how many, I have my summer sport coats and winter sport coats. Depending on the season, one batch is readily available while the non-seasonal batch await in the basement storage closet until their time. I also cover a variety of materials like leather, cotton, linen, Faux leather, etc. And of course, I have them by colors; Navy, beige, browns, greens. In all I have about 25. Broken down by season it’s about 12 or 13. I realize this is a bit much, and I’m controlling myself from getting more and also getting rid of the ones showing excessive wear, but I so agree with Joe Schmoe’s comment that “He wears clothes that fit well and look well put together, which make him look better than 90% of office workers and tries to brighten everyone's day by looking good and show the world that you care about your appearance.” That is also my mantra. And yes, I frequently receive stupid comments like “going to a job interview”, “where’s the party” but I also get those pleasant comments about how well dress I look (usually from women who comment on how they wish their husband would dress better).
Great post and advice!
 

jdgershbein

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I believe sport coats have come to the fore as the garment to carry the stylishness torch through the COVID-19 Age and into the recovery. Whereas a well-tailored classic suit remains the sine qua non of fine dress, the well-accessorized sport coat is -- if youi'll pardon the expression -- shouldering the burden for shifting tastes in menswear.

As I type this, I am holding at 7 sport coats and on the prowl for more.
 
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