I’ve never worn denim jackets much. They’ve usually been an occasional item, an experimental alternative to the suede blousons or chore jackets I wear more.
I think partly it’s about the styles I associate them with, which is chiefly denim-obsessive workwear or more fashion-led womenswear. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if men’s impressions generally have been rather affected by how popular they are with women.
The other, equally important reason is that I’ve found them hard to combine into outfits. The look of a denim jacket, white T-shirt and beige chinos is classic, but it also felt a little too ‘straight’. Not wrong, but not me.
At the other extreme, a denim jacket with tailoring often felt too unusual – not classic enough. Some of the Bryceland’s guys wear them with flannels and a shirt regularly, but it never felt quite right to me. This is, I guess, the process of finding your style.
There have been images of me wearing denim jackets in both these styles on PS in the past, as well as some slightly more unusual ones like under the Bridge Coat. I’ve included some of them above.
In some ways the fact these outfits have cropped up, but only once, illustrates the process of trying something, it not quite clicking, and as a result narrowing down your style.
More recently, I’ve been wearing denim jackets again – particularly as it’s a nice spring/summer jacket alternative – and pairing them with blue jeans. I’d always assumed this would be too fashion, too unusual. But as long as the blues aren’t that similar to each other, I like it.
So I find the mid-blue of my second-hand Levi’s Vintage Clothing jacket above (bought at Union Fade in Milan) nice with a dark-indigo jean. They might be the same material, but there’s nothing matchy about it.
The shots above and below are from a shoot we tried in the PS showroom. I think we can improve how we do these shoots, but the images serve to show the basic combination: the two blue denims with a T-shirt, grey sweatshirt and snuff-suede Alden chukka boots. With a vintage tan belt to match.
Jason Jules does it better in the lead image to this piece, but then he would. I guess he had the advantage of a proper studio too.
Another way I like wearing the jacket is with a big down-gilet over the top. That’s a deerskin one from The Real McCoy’s above.
People often layer denim jackets under coats, and I can see the appeal of this – both the practical one in that it can be worn in colder months, and the stylistic one in that it’s an unexpected bit of texture under a smooth overcoat.
It’s a look I associate with Bruce Pask, and Regis Guyot seems to do it well (that’s them below, in order). But I usually find this look impractical (perhaps the bigger sleeves of vintage ones are too large for some coats) and a little contrived on me. I haven’t repeated that look with the denim jacket under the Bridge Coat since the shoot.
A gilet is much easier over the top – there are no sleeves that have to work together, yet it adds a lot of warmth. In colder months I’ve found I effectively wear the two together as a coat, taking them both off as one when I arrive somewhere.
When I want a slightly stronger look (and of course the sun’s out) I like the denim jacket with white jeans. Either a grey or blue tee on top, perhaps a white one with a belt in between. That’s @kenichi_0215 below on Instagram in something similar. No idea what he does, but I like the way he wears grungey looks and ripped jeans yet avoids looking like he’s trying too hard to look young.
The next image is Shuhei Nishiguchi, as an illustration of the classic chinos look that I never seem to like. Maybe I need to play around with the proportions more.
The final images are there to illustrate the same thing: the look with tailoring that is a bit too unusual for me (on Willy at The Anthology and from Boogie Holiday), and the matchy-matchy double denim which I find a lot easier to pull off with a shirt than a jacket, for some reason.
Perhaps it’s those associations mentioned at the beginning – a denim shirt feels like one of the most universal things a guy can wear, while a denim jacket has shades of both workwear and womenswear. Indeed, now I think about it, in the latest shoot for the Bridge Coat I wore a denim shirt instead of a jacket. The combination of materials still clearly appeals, just in a different garment.
So then the obvious question – do you wear a denim jacket, and if so with what?
There will be a follow-up article this week looking at the best denim jackets out there. The other clothes shown on me are: a Real McCoy’s ‘Ball Park’ sweatshirt, a Permanent Style tapered T-shirt, Rubato jeans, a Real McCoy’s suede/reindeer gilet, a vintage belt and Alden chukka boots.
