Welcome back to the Gentleman's Gazette! In today's video, we'll discuss whether
layering a suit jacket, sport coat, or blazer on top of a T-shirt is a
stylish look or not. In the warmer months of the year, it's only natural to try to
cut down on the number of layers you'll be wearing each day. After all, with fewer
garments on your body, you'll generally stay cooler. Even so, different situations
call for different dress codes. A day at the beach may be well suited by shorts
and a simple shirt but a summer business meeting at the office is still going to
require something more formal and even within these general frameworks, dressing
up a little bit more than others is still something that can be done. As an
example ,wearing a polo shirt, dressier shorts, and boat shoes to a barbecue
will look infinitely more stylish than simply wearing a t-shirt, cargo shorts,
and sandals. That brings us to the topic at hand today then, in an effort to beat
the summer heat while still looking stylish, can one effectively pair a
t-shirt with a jacket or even with a full suit? Our answer in a nutshell is
that we wouldn't exactly recommend it. There are a host of other more stylish
options out there and we'll get to those more toward the end of the video. Still,
if you are really dying to pair these two garments together, there are ways to
do it that are better than others. On that note then, let's try to tackle
the reasoning behind why someone would conceivably want to pair these two
articles of clothing together. Firstly, it definitely presents a casual vibe in the
overall scale of formality, it would probably rank even below smart casual in
full-on casual wear. By the way, if you're curious about the scale of formality
to which we're referring you can check out our dress code primer video here.
Secondly and perhaps more practically speaking, it can get hot
during the summer months. Given that a t-shirt doesn't often have long sleeves,
you'll be removing that extra bit of fabric from your frame and thus staying
cooler. It should be said, we're going into today's video with the assumption
that wherever you're planning on going, a jacket of some kind is required,
otherwise, you probably wouldn't be attempting this combination in the first
place and would simply forego a jacket altogether.
With that fairly compelling rationale out of the way, however, there are a
number of reasons why attempting to pair a t-shirt and a jacket is ill-advised.
First and foremost, a t-shirt and a jacket are at greatly different levels
of overall formality and when any garments of greatly different levels of
formality are paired together, the overall formality of the outfit skews
downward, not upward. In other words, pairing a t-shirt with a jacket doesn't
dress up the t-shirt, it only dresses down the jacket. The second key reason
for not pairing a t-shirt and a jacket together is that doing so will probably
make you look dated and not in a good way.
The height of the trend of wearing t-shirts and jackets together came in
the 1980s as perhaps best exemplified by the TV show, Miami Vice. Not only were
t-shirts worn with jackets and even full suits but the cut and colors were baggy
and bright, respectively. If you do try wearing a t-shirt with a jacket today
even if the fit is more trim and the colors are more muted, most people's
first associations are still going to be with the 80s and you'll have the general
effect of looking like a throwback. You might be wondering how is this any
different from the Gentleman's Gazette's frequent praise of early 20th century
fashions? Well, the simple answer right now is that the 1980s are just dated
enough that most of their fashions aren't in style anymore but still, just
current enough that some of those trends are hanging on. In other words, it's kind
of an uncanny valley in terms of time right now and being caught in the
middle, wearing some of these distinctly 80s fashions is just going to make
you look dated instead of like someone who's
celebrating these stylistic choices of an earlier era. Finally, there are simply
a great number of more stylish alternatives at your disposal than
pairing a t-shirt and a jacket together. Again, we'll get to those in a moment.
But first, if you simply must pair a t-shirt and a jacket together, here's the
advice we have on making it look passable. First, it's best to choose a
crew neck t-shirt over a v-neck. The crew neck is a little bit more modest and
will tamp down some of those 80s vibes. In terms of fit, the t-shirt shouldn't be
too baggy or too tight. If the t-shirt is baggy, you're just going to look sloppy
and not very well put together and if the t-shirt is too tight, you're just
going to look like you have something to prove or you're trying to show off your
physique. As to the question of how your jacket should fit, you should check
out our video guide on that subject here. Next, stay away from any flashy colors or
patterns on your t-shirt and this should go without saying but absolutely no
graphic tees, period. Solid and muted colors or perhaps a subtle pattern such
as a Breton stripe will help to formalize the t-shirt just a little bit
and bring it slightly more in line with the formality of the jacket. If you do
still want to incorporate some color and pattern into your outfit, you can do so
using your jacket within reason or better yet using a smaller accessory
like a pocket square. In terms of jacket styles, it's best to go with a
summer weight odd sport coat or blazer rather than a suit jacket. As we
mentioned above, a suit jacket and a t-shirt are so wildly different in
levels of formality that they'll basically be actively fighting with each
other if you try to wear them together. And on that note, go with odd trousers
as well; cotton chinos or slacks in a neutral color and preferably without a
pattern will casualize and ground the outfit at the same time. Wearing a
t-shirt under a matching suit jacket and trousers is a one-way ticket to 80sVille.
Meanwhile, if you're curious about how to wear and pair garments in neutral colors
effectively you can check out this recent video here. An additional style
tip for wearing a t-shirt under a jacket, make sure that the t-shirt is tucked in;
if it's untucked, things are just going to look that much more discordant in
terms of formality and they really won't work. Okay, there are our recommendations
for pairing a t-shirt with a jacket if you absolutely must, however, as we've
alluded to several times over the course of the video, there are a number of more
stylish alternatives at your disposal and we'll discuss those now. Firstly, just
wearing a standard dress shirt with an open collar under your jacket should
still keep you cooler than if you were wearing a tie and it will look better as
the dress shirt and jacket are closer in terms of overall formality. On that note,
you can find our video on wearing jackets without ties here. Next, if you
would prefer to wear a shirt without long sleeves, go for a polo. Short sleeved
dress shirts under jackets or even on their own can look a bit dorky so
they're best avoided. Not only should a polo worn under a
jacket keep you cooler but also because it's well within the realm of smart
casual and therefore, closer to something like a summer weight sport coat or
blazer, you can feel free to experiment to a greater degree with the colors or
subtle patterns of your polo so long as they harmonize with those of your jacket.
Just make sure that everything is working in harmony and of course, be sure
also that your polo is tucked in. As a bonus tip here, long sleeved polos in
darker jewel tones can work well under jackets in the cooler
months of the year as well. Whether short-sleeved or long-sleeved, there is
one potential pitfall of pairing a polo with a jacket and that's the polo shirt's
more unstructured collar. In order to make sure things are looking good, give a
check every once in a while just to see that things aren't bunched up underneath
your jacket's collar. If you do this, wearing a polo with a jacket should be a
look that you can pull off well and it will come off casually overall. For more
information you can check out our guide to polo shirts here. Finally, if you
really are against wearing a shirt with a collar, a happy middle ground between a
standard t-shirt and a polo would be the Henley shirt. It isn't quite as easy to
pair with a jacket as a polo would be but it's slightly easier than a standard
t-shirt. Follow the guidelines we gave for pairing t-shirts and jackets
together with your Henleys and you should end up looking good. So there are
our opinions on wearing t-shirts with jackets. Skip it for full suits as the
difference in formality between the garments is simply going to be too great.
If you want to wear a t-shirt with an odd jacket and trousers, you can do so
slightly more easily and one additional note here, if keeping cool is your main
aim, then look into getting jackets without an interlining in them and in
lightweight summer fabrics. For more information on these kinds of
lightweight summer appropriate jackets stay tuned for an upcoming video on
summer suits. Of course we'd like to know what are your own personal opinions on
pairing t-shirts with jackets; we anticipate that we might have some more
varying opinions for this video than some others but we'll be curious to read
the comments that are coming and as always don't forget to subscribe to the
channel and to hit that little Bell icon so videos like these can come straight
to your inbox. As you can see I'm wearing a combination of t-shirt and jacket in
today's video but I'm trying to follow the guidelines that we
laid out so that things are generally more harmonious than they might
otherwise be first of all my t-shirt is plain gray and isn't form-fitting or too
baggy I've got it tucked in as well in some of these shots you may catch brief
glimpses of a logo in the upper left hand corner of the t-shirt frankly if
this was unavoidable for me as I don't own any completely plain t-shirts that I
would see as being totally suitable for pairing with jackets this if anything
underscores the point we're trying to make in this video however given that
this was one of the most plain t-shirts I had and in one of the most neutral
colors I wore it to approximate the advice that we're giving the jacket I'm
wearing over the shirt is a summer weight jacket in a cotton linen blend
and featuring a subtle windowpane pattern the jacket is blue gray and the
pattern on top is beige and brown the accent of color in the outfit comes from
the pocket square which is beige in color and features edge stitching in
blue thus harmonizing with the jacket
meanwhile my trousers are plain charcoal echoing the gray tones of the shirt as
well as those of the jacket another element of color in today's outfit comes
from my socks which are from Fort Belvedere they are shadow striped models in
blue and the stripe is gray finally I'm wearing a newer pair of dark oxblood
penny loafers replacing the older pair that you've seen in past videos stay
tuned for an upcoming video on how my shoe collection will be growing soon in
addition to the shadow striped socks you can find a wide variety of other
accessories in the Fort Belvedere shop here