Here's How to Wear a Blazer (or Sports Coat) and Jeans

No shame brother, but if you got here by Googling "How to wear a blazer and jeans," let's have a little heart-to-heart. Whenever you try a new look, it will feel like a big step, but a dressed down jacket and jeans is as classic as it gets. Sure, if it's outside your normal thing, a friend or loved one is going to say something, but that shouldn't dissuade you. For example, I recently just started wearing sunglasses inside. I was in a New York City subway car. This means nothing to the rest of the country, but the new city cars are monstrosities with TV advertising boards and ultra cool white light, interrogation room light, the kind of light they shine on you when you're in a straitjacket. I left my low-ish tint sunglasses on to keep things more bearable. We got outside in the sun, walked to the bar, sat down inside, and I...kept them on. After a beat, my wife goes, "Sunglasses inside?" I say, "Yeah, do I look insane?" She responds, "No it's fine, order me a martini." I do it all the time now, and she's started saying it's "cool," not just fine.

If my wife (my harshest critic) can get behind me wearing sunglasses inside (the most up-my-own-ass wannabe rockstar of all looks), you can try something new and throw a blazer over your T-shirt and jeans (the most agreeable, classic of looks). So, if you came here for some reassurance I will say: Yes, you will look cool in a blazer and jeans. Also, they're only clothes; you wear them or you don't.

Ralph Lauren The RL67 Herringbone Jacket

Of course, if you came here looking for ideas, inspiration, and guardrails, I'm happy to give them. The only real guardrail is to know the difference between suit jacket, blazer, and sports coat. A suit jacket has a pair of matching pants. It also has a few touches—buttons in the same color or color palette and a smoother, more dressy fabric—that make it read as "more formal." Most places will say "Never wear a suit jacket with jeans." I, however, love to do it, but it's more of a tastefully tacky thing, so I'm going to recommend it only after all the easy ways to go jacket over jeans.

So, what's the difference blazers and sports coats? Today, the terms are used interchangeably, but let me give you the short story. Histories compete on which was first, but the blazer comes from military dress and the style of university sports clubs. In it's simplest form, it's a somewhat structured jacket with brass (you might just call them gold) buttons. A sports coat, however, comes from classic dress of the British aristocracy. In it's truest form, it's a tweed jacket with touches pulled from traditional hunting garments: patch elbows or shoulders for shooting; a throat latch on the left lapel for weather resistance; and big externally sewn pockets for holding, shells, game, etc.

Sports Coat

Blazer

For me, a sports coat is easier to wear because it's more traditionally casual, and some people find it difficult to get over the preppy connotations of a blazer. But both are no brainers. If you need a guiding light for either style, look to Ralph Lauren, the man. I would say his prep-meets-western style is the driving force that's made this such a classic combo in American menswear.

One of the most well-known menswear images out there: Ralph Lauren, pictured on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan in 1978, showing exactly how to wear a sports coat over his classic double denim.

But he’s also done it many times over with a more military-inspired blazer. Here he is in 2019, also in New York City.

For a more in-depth shopping breakdown, let me go through the elements of the outfit, and give you my top picks.

Here, I would stick with the big name classics of American menswear: Ralph Lauren (especially for the RL67 sports coat) and J.Press (especially for brass-button blazers). If you want something more new-age, both Todd Snyder and Buck Mason do really good takes on the form. My advice here: Don't stray too far from the classics. What makes this look cool is what you wear underneath it. Keep your jackets in a mix of classic navy or sporty brown tweeds, though gray tweeds are nice and feel less country. If you want to branch out, go for a simple plaid but stay in the world of browns and grays.

At the end of this product selection, I have Dunhill, who I especially love right now. But truthfully, Dunhill is a stand in for the entirety of high-end British menswear. Every Savile Row tailor and every classically British brand will make its own version of the wool sports coat. If you want to dive down the ready-to-wear options from established names like Anderson & Sheppard, Gieves & Hawkes, Edward Sexton, or whatever you want. Newer brands like Drake's or J. Mueser (not British, still classic) also make good options.

And if you don't like the look of these prices, the secret is that so many of these are available secondhand. Ralph Lauren, J.Press, and Brooks Brothers have made tweed jackets and gold button blazers for decades. They are so easy to find on eBay, in consignment stores, or in the closet of your country club member uncle.

Keep the jeans as simple as possible. I prefer a classic raw denim, which I then wear until it's faded and tattered. Denim is a neutral, so at every stage of wear it looks wonderful with whatever you pair on top of it. This product selection features my favorites—RRL, Wrangler, Imogene and Willie—but is by no means comprehensive.

Also, if you're wearing a sports coat and it's woven with black or a deep brown to accent a lighter gray or beige, totally cool to rock a pair of black jeans.

Here, I have a pretty hard rule. You should only do this with classic black and brown leather. You can do a white leather sneaker, but I think that takes you too far into the realm of European art gallery owner. Within the world of black and brown leather, you can play around with suede, exotic leather, loafers, boots, derbies, and so forth. I heavily endorse the Ralph Lauren move to always wear it with cowboy boots. There's a lot to mine there.

I will amend that statement and say if you're over the age of 60, wearing it with a running sneaker (like older Ralph Lauren earlier in this story) is very cool. It's practical, says you don't care too much about appearances, and actually protects your joints. Older guys, do you; everyone else, keep it simple.

This is where add yourself into the blazer and jeans thing. Everything else in this outfit is pretty formulaic. The average person won't notice a difference between my cowboy boots and your suede loafers. They will, however, notice the band logo that's on your chest.

I love wearing vintage tees with blazers and jeans—sports tees, old beer league jerseys, and anything you've picked up at a concert. You can wear a denim shirt to lean into the ruggedness. You can wear an oxford cloth button down to give it more of a prep look. In any case, this is where I would advise you to try and be unique. Let your shirt say a little something about you.

That's really it. I'm not going to do little mock up outfits for you or tell you all the accessories to buy, because that's not what this outfit is about. It should be a uniform, something you make a building block of the wardrobe, something that can act as a canvas for other impulses. Want to wear your super ratty jeans? Hell yeah. Want to show off a new, weird belt? It's perfect for that. Anything short of a first date or fancy dinner, a blazer or sports coat with jeans is perfectly at home.

In a god-tier style move, Ralph Lauren wears jeans and boots as the bottom half of his evening wear at the 2005 CFDA Fashion Awards.

And as for any hard an fast rules, once you wear this template enough, you can get away with more and more. To bring it back to Ralph Lauren, in all his decades of wearing this combo he has worn jeans as the bottom half of a tuxedo on plenty of occasions. For you, I would say that's a move you can make after 10 years of doing this. But yes, like I mentioned before, you can wear it with a proper suit jacket; who the hell cares? There are no actual rules here. They're just clothes, man. Have fun with it.