Chariot
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The first week of September did what it always does in Montreal: twenty-six degrees on Tuesday, twelve on Thursday morning, and suddenly every man walking down Decarie Boulevard wished he had a jacket on. Not a coat — a jacket. This is the season the sport jacket runs the show, and in our experience it is also the garment men buy with the least confidence. So here is our honest guide to how to choose a sport jacket, drawn from what we see in the fitting room every week.
A word on why it matters more than it used to. Most of our clients no longer wear a suit five days a week. The sport jacket has quietly become the hardest-working piece in a professional man's wardrobe — it goes to the office over flannel trousers, to dinner over denim, and to a client meeting where a full suit would feel like trying too hard. One good jacket now does the work three suits used to do.
First, the mistake we see every week
A man comes in wearing his old suit jacket as a sport jacket. We understand the logic — the trousers wore out, the jacket survived. But it never works. Suit cloth is smooth and slightly lustrous by design; worn over chinos or jeans it reads instantly as half a suit, and everyone can tell, even people who could not say why. A true sport jacket is built from cloth with texture and depth. That texture is the whole point. It is what lets the jacket sit naturally next to flannel, corduroy, denim — fabrics no suit would tolerate.
How to choose a sport jacket: buy the cloth first
Before fit, before colour, look at the fabric. For a Montreal fall we want cloths with a bit of loft — they drape better, wrinkle less, and hold their own once the temperature drops. This season our racks make the case well. Luigi Bianchi's camel wool-cashmere sport jacket is the one we keep pulling for clients: a warm, quiet colour that flatters nearly everyone and looks as right over grey flannels as it does over dark denim. Jack Victor — cut a few kilometres from our store — sends us a brown wool-knit Hampton with the kind of surface interest a photograph never quite captures. And Corneliani's beige and grey check is proof that a pattern can be bold at arm's length and discreet across a boardroom table.
Here is an opinion you will not hear everywhere: if you are buying your first serious sport jacket, do not default to solid navy. Most men already own something navy, and a solid blazer is the least versatile thing on this page — it flirts with looking like, yes, half a suit. A mid-grey, a brown, or a muted check will earn its keep faster. Browse the current selection in our jackets and blazers collection and you will see where our buying conviction went this fall.
Structure: how much jacket do you want to feel?
Sport jackets range from fully canvassed and structured to entirely unconstructed — no shoulder padding, minimal lining, closer to a cardigan in feel than a suit coat. Neither is better; they are different tools. A structured shoulder sharpens the silhouette and suits a formal office. An unconstructed jacket, like L.B.M. 1911's grey mélange wool jersey, travels beautifully, shrugs off a full day of sitting, and is the one our clients reach for on planes. If you run warm or spend your day moving, go unconstructed. If your calendar is boardrooms, take the structure.
The shoulder rule, and what alterations can do
One rule outranks all others: the shoulder must fit off the rack. The seam should end where your shoulder does, full stop. Our tailors can shorten sleeves, take in a waist, adjust a collar — we do it in-house every day. What no tailor can economically do is rebuild a shoulder. If the shoulder is wrong, walk away, even from a jacket you love. Even from one of ours.
Sleeve length matters almost as much and is far easier to fix: a quarter to a half inch of shirt cuff showing, no more. It is a small detail that separates a man whose jacket was finished for him from a man who took it home as-is.
Buy one good one
Our closing argument is arithmetic. A well-chosen sport jacket pairs with two or three trousers and works perhaps a hundred days a year — the cost-per-wear beats nearly anything else in the closet. One excellent jacket, properly fitted, will serve you better than three adequate ones. If you would like our eyes on the decision, book an appointment and we will pull options in your size before you arrive. The cold Thursday mornings are only getting colder.
