A Twelve Year Old Jacket, Still Working Beautifully

Fashion is an industry that employs a lot of people. It has to move and change its colors at least twice each year in order to sustain itself, which is why we have Fall/Winter and Spring/Summer seasons. (Then there are those extra “Resort” and “Capsule” situations we’re supposed to get excited about now, too.)

I enjoy looking at collections for inspiration and out of appreciation of great designers who do inspired work, but the shows rarely (if ever) inspire an actual “gotta have it” transaction from my wallet. If I’ve said it a hundred times, this will be a hundred and one: as much as we’re pressured to reload with new stuff every season, basic standards of classic men’s style aren’t really going to change in the lifetime of anyone reading this. 

Recently, I had dinner with a media business friend at Sarabeth’s in TriBeCa. We had worked together earlier this year when he hired me to direct the fashion pages of a new men’s magazine he was designing. Our conversation over dinner naturally progressed to clothes. That evening, he was wearing a light blue, single-breasted, cotton jacket with peak lapels and pick stitching. It was simple, elegant and beautiful. 

When I complimented him on it, he said, “Oh, this thing is probably ten or twelve years old. I hope it still works, though.” Indeed, it did. It was very nicely tailored, with a flattering fit that conformed to his shape without squeezing it. The gently padded shoulders were not ’90s wide or late ’00s skinny; they were just right. And when he entered the restaurant at our reservation time, one of the first things I noticed as he walked in was the time-tested length of the jacket, which was just down to his thumb knuckle, covering the behind. (I notice things like this.) Well played.

As he told me how comfortable his old jacket was, he showed me the lining, revealing the jacket’s maker: Brioni, masters of rigorous construction standards with brilliant men’s tailoring. Not trendy, yet never dated; expensive as hell, but surely worthwhile if one has the means. With my friend’s ten-or-twelve year old jacket, they created a timeless, masterfully crafted garment that would never go out of style. 

My friend is a few years older than I (and has worked very hard for decades to be able to wear Brioni), and has collected a smart collection of clothes that works quite well for him now and will likely continue to work for a very long time. When it comes to my own wardrobe, I try to make smart choices like that – choices that won’t have me wondering what I was thinking in five years’ time.

If one has the interest, money or energy to spend on bi-annual fashion trends, there’s no absolutely harm. It’s wonderful, in fact, unless it supports a system of slave labor and piles of disposable fast fashion. As I said, the legitimate and ethically balanced garment trade means good jobs. But the fickle pendulum that decides whether jackets are shorter or longer or lapels and ties are skinnier or wider from one year to the next is a vine on which I have no interest in swinging. I’d personally prefer to invest in a wardrobe that won’t have me cringe at photos of my fashion-victim self in five years, embarrassed by tragic lapses in judgment. Having been a keen observer of style in film, in photographs and in real life over many decades, and seeing men like my friend in his twelve year old jacket, I know it’s possible.