Men's Style Tips - Suit Jacket Vs. Sport Jackets - What's The Difference - Male Fashion Advice
Hi!
I'm Antonio Centeno, the founder of Real Men Real Style.
Today, I'm going to be answering a question.
What's the difference between a sports jacket and a suit jacket?
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jackets and suits.
Okay, so the question that came in, a gentleman is asking me, "Antonio, what is the difference
between a sports jacket and a suit jacket, and how can they be worn?"
He was just very confused about the two types of jackets.
All right.
I can see where the confusion comes from.
The differences between the two used to be cleaner.
It used to be that the sports jacket was for sport, a suit jacket was for more formal events.
But over time, and thanks to mass manufacturing, you've seen the jackets in terms of the structure,
the fabric.
They've come very close, so you see a lot of sports jackets which look like suit jackets,
and suit jackets which look like sports jackets.
It's not always exactly clear, but I'm going to give you three reasons that, when I look
at a jacket, help me understand whether or not it's a suit jacket or a sports jacket.
The number one thing is going to be the fabric, so look at the fabric.
Usually, with a sports jacket, it's going to be with the more casual fabrics because
it's made to be a jacket to stand alone as an odd jacket, in which the classification
it falls under.
And so, with these odd jackets -- and "odd" meaning it does not have an exact pair of
trousers to go with it -- you're often going to see fabrics that want to stand out a bit
more, so they're going to be brighter colors.
You're going to see brown herringbone tweeds.
You're going to see check patterns.
You're going to see all types of fabrics which you would not normally see -- they're more
likely going to have pattern in them, while with a suit jacket, you're going to see those
in black.
You're going to see those in navy.
You're going to see those in charcoal grey and normally, those suit jackets are going
to be solid.
You also will occasionally see them pinstriped, but that's pretty much suit jackets.
You'll occasionally see suits in other extravagant patterns as well, but we're talking higher
end stores and that's where the difference between the jackets becomes less common.
By the way, you could have a suit -- just to confuse matters more -- you could have
a suit and a sports jacket made from the exact same fabric, and that's where these other
issues come in, so let's talk about the build.
Sport jackets are typically built, I would say, more casually, so less formally.
The pockets, if you look at the pocket on this sports jacket, which is made from a brown
hopsack fabric, it's very nice.
It's got brown with black in it, but this jacket right here -- or this pocket, I'm sorry,
is a patch pocket.
And so, a patch pocket is sewn on to the material.
It's not going to go in.
There is no material on this chest cut into, which is normally what you would see on a
breast pocket.
That right there signifies to me that this is more casual and is right for a sports jacket.
Whenever I make a sports jacket for a client, I always try to do these little types of pockets
and these other little details.
I went with two buttons right here on the sleeve and the reason I went with the two
buttons is that normally on a suit jacket, you're going to see four, sometimes now even
five buttons.
I like sports jackets to have a few less buttons, so those little types of details are I think
on the build.
Another thing that you're going to see on the build is sports jackets normally have
a bit more room.
The whole idea with the sports jacket is it came around to be used at sports.
So if you're going to go out hunting, whenever the gentleman hunter went out, he would wear
a heavy tweed sports jacket, which gave him more flexibility in the back.
So in the back of the jacket, you would actually sometimes have pleats that would open up.
So if he's going to be out shooting, he could have full arm movement.
You're not going to see that on a suit jacket.
The suit jacket was made for business.
I know some of you guys in Wall Street or maybe down in Florida, you're in the banking
industry.
Perhaps you think that you need a bit more movement because you're getting pretty engaged.
I don't know, guys, but in any case, you're not going to have as free of movement in a
true sports jacket, which a true sports jacket is going to have just a little bit of a looser
fit.
The other part of the build is you're going to see there's going to be normally more structure
in a suit jacket.
A lot of times, a suit jacket's shoulders are going to be more straight, be more pointed
on the ends, while with a sports jacket, there's going to be less padding in here.
Now, that's not always true.
You see a lot of modern suit jackets with very little padding, very little structure
on the shoulders, but traditionally, a suit jacket, especially of the English style, is
going to have more structure in the chest and in the shoulder area, so that's the build.
We've talked about fabric.
Actually, with the build, I also talked about the style.
And the styling are going to be all those little details.
Usually on a sports jacket, you're going to have a single vent or you're going to have
a double vent.
On a suit jacket, you can have no vents, which give you the least amount of mobility, but
gives you the nicest lines in the hip area.
So if you've got bigger hips, you want a jacket with no vents because that's going to allow
you to wrap the fabric closer around your hips and minimize their look, especially with
a dark fabric.
Now, the double vent is perfect if you're -- in my world, that to me is the ideal vent
structure.
Now, the single vent was actually developed for men that rode horses because if you can
imagine, it allowed the fabric to fall on both sides of the horse, especially if a man
is wearing a longer jacket with tails as he used to a hundred years ago.
Nowadays, I see the single vent as -- well, it's the cheapest one to manufacture and you'll
see it on most off-the-rack, but when it comes to a sports jacket, I think a single vent
is actually fine, although I push my clients towards the double vent because I think it's
a little bit classier looking.
Another thing with the sports jacket on the style is you are going to see -- you can also
see belts on sports jackets occasionally.
That's pretty rare, but I think we hit most of the points.
Again, the key is to look at, is this something that looks like it needs to have a matching
pair of trousers with it?
It is made from a darker fabric?
Usually, those are going to be the suit jackets.
The sports jackets, you can go with lighter fabrics, fabrics which are really standing
out there.
All right.
Hopefully, this gave you a bit of guidance.
Again, visit the articles I'm going to link to down below.
They're really useful and it will help and expand on the points I've talked about in
this video.
This has been Antonio Centeno with Real Men Real Style.
If you like this video, again, like it down below.
I'll see you in the next video.
Bye-bye.