Fashion
Who Can Pull Off a Jean Jacket?
Uncertain about whether a denim jacket suits his personal style, a reader seeks guidance from our fashion critic.
I was in a Zoom meeting today, and a female colleague was wearing a jean jacket that made me want to get one of my own. But then I thought: Wait, I’m a middle-aged guy in the suburbs who generally dresses quite casually and conservatively. Do I have any business thinking about buying a jean jacket? — Howard, Atlanta
Denim jackets are so rife with associations, they are like a Ph.D. thesis in a garment. They have been the uniform of cowboys and the counterculture, not to mention greasers, rock stars and rebels (with or without a cause). That’s probably why you are second-guessing your own desire to wear one in what sounds like fairly settled middle age.
After all, if you are now the establishment, and jean jackets are the signifiers of youth and rugged individualism, doesn’t wearing one as a suburban dad come awfully close to false advertising? Or mutton dressed as lamb? Or some sort of embarrassing wishful thinking that shouldn’t be exposed to the light of day?
These are valid concerns. Yet, presumably you still wear jeans and don’t feel like a pretender in those. So what’s the difference?
There really isn’t one. At this point, jeans and jean jackets are just basics, like white T-shirts and sneakers. They have a place in every wardrobe, especially during seasonal transitions, and they’re beyond age. The question isn’t really whether or not you can still wear one. The question is what kind of jean jacket you would wear and how you’d wear it.
Think of it by another name: the trucker jacket. Then, as Derek Guy, the men’s wear critic behind the “Die, Workwear!” blog, suggested, think of “The Electric Horseman,” the movie starring Robert Redford as a 40-something retired rodeo star given to wearing … denim jackets.
You just have to pay attention to certain details, Mr. Guy advised.
That means staying away from ripped, patched denim and opting for “a clean fit and simple lines.” And consider the angle of the chest pockets. If they lean toward the shoulder, Mr. Guy said, they can even suggest suit lapels. Heavier denim jackets with contrasting collars in corduroy or fleece or blanket linings provide more of a frontiersman vibe, while dark denim is a little more formal.
