Zero Sartorial

I spent some of the weekend looking for sports jackets like the one Carlos is wearing. It’s more difficult than you might expect, for two reasons – first, the description “brown plaid sports jacket” is very, very broad. And second, there don’t actually seem to be many out there that even come close to being similar.

eBay turned up some decent results, though, and I’m sure that sooner or later I’ll come across some kind of menswear search engine.

First up, we have what’s described as a “Mens Vintage 70s Brown Plaid Skinny Slim Mod Blazer Sport Coat Jacket 40 Short“. Which is quite a mouthful. It matches the description, but it’s more in the line of what I’d expect from “plaid”, and therefore something I wouldn’t wear, myself. It has a definite retro mod feel about it, so it might appeal to someone – but it’s a dead end in terms of the look from the starting point.

This “Haggar Sharp Brown Plaid Check Two Button Blazer Sport Coat Jacket 40S” is more like it. It’s an actual check, as the Americans put it, and it looks more like Carlos’ jacket. It has a yellowish cast to it, picked up by the sweater it’s displayed with in the picture there, which doesn’t appeal to me, but it might work well for someone with darker colouring than my rugged Viking shades. It’s close enough that it could work.

And finally, a “vintage 70s mens plaid TWEED jacket blazer sport coat wool skinny small 38 S“, which is interesting. On the one hand, it’s a little further off from the starting point image – it has more definite colours, and it looks like a heavier fabric. But on the other hand, those bolder colours look good, and I’m using the picture as inspiration, not a template. The blue of Carlos’ denim shirt wouldn’t work with this, but I suspect that given a dark grey sweater and a light-coloured shirt, it could look very well indeed. Of those I found, this one – at least in cut, fabric, and colour – is the one I’d go for.

We will ignore the fact that I’d have a rough time getting into this size of garment, mind. I am many things, but I am not small. Oddly, a great many of the sports jackets on eBay are in this range.

Finally, one other item appeared during my search, this “Sand Sport Coat” in brown plaid. The main image gives no impression of plaid; only the close-up image of the fabric shows it. The overall impression there, from the waistcoat and tie in the same colour, is much like that of a Western – you can imagine some slightly better-dressed character, a lawyer or doctor, wearing something like this in the Old West. That’s a long way from my own image of the sports coat, but it still fits under all the definitions.