Cotton Dandy

Why? Very simply, like its dressier cousin the metal-buttoned blazer, it’s a highly useful piece of apparel all the year ’round. A jacket of this sort serves as an alternative to a cardigan or sweater for indoor wear during the depths of winter. In spring, it’s great with a chino, desert boots or loafers, an Oxford button-down and maybe a silk knit or check cotton tie. Come summer, it’s superb with sneakers, jeans and a tee, a polo or camp collar shirt, and can easily be rocked with shorts and flip-flops for a vacay vibe. When autumn leaves start to fall, pair with cords, a check shirt, woolen tie and chukkas or hiking boots.

It’s good for lunch, dinner, cinema or theatre, the office, the aircraft, a stroll in the woods, a beer by the beach, a drive, a date, a trip to the country club or the nightclub… It’ll take you just about anywhere. (And when you’re done, you can even roll the thing up and use it as a pillow.)

Jackets of this kind represent outstanding value not simply because you’ll get so much wear out of them, but thanks to their rather reasonable price-tags. Because they’re made of comparatively inexpensive cotton cloth, and are constructed in an uncomplicated fashion, they can often be had for sums far below what a woolen sports coat would cost. You’ll save on dry cleaning, too, since most cotton jackets can be hand-washed — some, even thrown in the machine. And they’ll emerge looking better for it!

These garments do gain a patina of age, yes, however that is a big part of their charm. Michael Hill of Drake’s told blogger Derek Guy (a.k.a. Die, Workwear) he loves what might be considered the negatives of cotton tailored jackets: “They’re stiff, they crumple, the color fades… (but) the fabric almost molds to your body. That’s the wonderful thing… They’re casual and age with you, much like a good pair of jeans.”

Permanent Style’s Simon Crompton concurs. “Cotton, despite its lack of stretch, can be an effective and modern option for a summer jacket,” he writes. “It can be a ‘modern’ option because of the way cotton ages, often losing colour at the edges and other wear points, and making it look lived-in very quickly. Darker colours will show this effect quicker than light ones, and garment-dyed jackets are often specifically created to have the effect from day one.”

Having read all that, are you not utterly convinced that you need a cotton sports coat in your life? It’s an essential! A lime-green silk dinner jacket, meanwhile… well, that’s more a matter of individual discretion.