Show off the sports coats.

[resortes805]

This is a two piece herrigbone but it looks great as a sportscoat.

I know what'cha mean; I have a handful suit of which I've never worn the pants too; the coat just looks better matched to contrasting pants.

Here are some orphaned suit coats that I have no choice but to wear them as sportjackets; where are your pants?!?

These mugs have '39 tags.

[Baron Kurtz]

Here's one:





Currently for sale in classifieds.

bk

[Matt Deckard]

[Baron Kurtz]

bk

[Archie Goodwin]

I have a non-standard drop, which makes buying off the rack difficult, and made to measure is a little too expensive, so I buy sport coats that fit in the shoulders to wear with odd trousers that fit in the waist. Sorry, no pix with me right now.

[AlanC]

This is probably my favorite sportcoat. I particularly like the side vents, which can't be seen here, of course:

[Griemersma]

I can't remember exactly, but I think I heard once that the whole sportjacket concept started on college campuses where students mixed and matched suits to be rebellious. Does anyone know if there is any truth to this or did I just dream it up? Of course the name itself "sportjacket" implies more of a active/hunting origin. Anybody know the history?

I did find this article about the phenomenon, but it isn't exactly what I was looking for. here's part of the article from Apparel Arts 1934 that I cut and pasted. The article concerns fashions on American campuses, primarily Ivy League. More can be found here:

http://thelondonlounge.net/gl/forum/...pic.php?t=5433

Great pics, too! Here's the article:

ODD JACKETS

Few fashions attach more interest to themselves than the pronounced vogue for wearing odd jackets, slacks and waistcoats. This trend is responsible for the very popular mixed suit ensembles which have been dinned into the ears of so many people, not without appreciable effect.

Favored odd jackets are made up in Harris tweed, Shetland, cheviot, Irish homespun, Donegal tweed and gabardine. They find their greatest vogue in a three-button single breasted notched lapel model and very often they carry a belted back with bi-wing pleats. It should be added, however, that on the smarter jackets fancy backs are on their way out, with probable cause being traceable to the increased popularity of bold plaids and checks.

The more fashionable sports jackets carry a center or side vents, regular pockets with flaps and a cash pocket. These odd jackets are quite long and follow very much the same lines as those of the single breasted rough fabric suits.

The Norfolk jackets, which were popular year ago, have again been caught up in the fashion wave and are finding acceptance with clothes-minded undergraduate. A few Norfolk jackets were seen on the campus of Princeton University in the fall of 1933 and at that time Apparel Arts mentioned the return to this once-popular garment for sportswear. Since then, the Norfolk jacket has gone on to an acceptance, or rather re-acceptance, that is little short of remarkable.

But there are as many downs as there are ups in fashion, and on the downward trend are to be listed solid colored sports jackets. These, in fact, are seldom if ever seen. Practically all sports jackets carry definite patterns, whether hound’s tooth check, Glen-plaids, over plaids, district checks or herringbone. These jackets are very often worn in contrast to solid colored dark grey flannel trousers, or trousers that carry a small check or herringbone pattern.

[Baron Kurtz]

Flussers book pretty much reiterates the above. Post WWI invention, rather than simply wearing a suit jacket with odd trousers (white flannel, generally) for less formal occasions, specific "sports" jackets were introduced.

I also don't know the authenticity of this story.

bk

[Fletch]

Griemersma, thanks awful for that link...that guy Etutee goes into (if anything) TOO MUCH detail about the clothesways of the 30s as depicted in Esquire..

To your (and his) point about the Ivy League: Princeton and Yale were pretty much the whole story as far as collegiate clothing trends for two reasons.
a) Harvard was just too far from New York. (When Esquire spoke of what to wear in Town, where do you think Town was?) Besides, it was too firmly in the pull of Boston, whose upper-class culture was very closed and conservative indeed. And it had the stigma of being first in academic excellence, which was thought of as very much secondary to the u/c priorities of social and sport activities.
b) Other Ivy schools, such as Brown, Penn and Columbia, were very much considered second-raters by the u/c culture. If any trends originated at those schools, much less the Big Ten or (heaven forbid) the West Coast, Princeton and Yale wouldn't have noticed or cared.

-Fletch, Michigan '89

[Baron Kurtz]

But weren't most of the Ivy League-originated trends really what were being brought back from the continent after the summer holidays by the richer students?

bk - Purdue '07