Tweed is an iconic cloth that at times feels a little overdone, yet other times quite underrated. The super heavy duty tweeds can feel like a cloth from a bygone era when central heat and air didn’t exist. Though to be fair, many people commute on the streets in public transportation and can use the warmest layers they can get (me, my commutes have always been in climate controlled cars straight into a climate controlled building; super warm layers are almost a curse). Cashmere blends and faux-tweeds have become extremely popular, too, using flecks of color to simulate the appearance of donegal, for instance, but with a much softer wool flannel hand. Those are great (the majority of my winter sportcoats are like that; only one is a true tweed), and feel a bit more luxurious.
However, tweed continues to hold appeal for its hard wearing sensibility. It was made for hunting in the countryside. It can withstand your seatbelt or shoulder bag without getting shiny; it will be fine if you lean up against a dirty building; it won’t snag on something sharp and look bad; and perhaps most importantly, it can withstand your small children’s antics.
A few years ago, I gave input on and was able to try out the nascent “Neapolitan” cut Rikky Khanna was working on at Spier & Mackay. During the season he was selling the second revision, he ran it in an outstanding gun club tweed cloth. Sadly the cut wasn’t quite there yet that season, at least how it fit for me (I’m sure there were others it worked for). But this season he’s brought it back, to join the ranks of a handful of other tweed sport coats and coats to make this winter season one for the books.
Below, that jacket linked plus the other really cool-looking tweed (and tweed-esque) sport coats and coats for this winter. The blazers are all the 3-roll-2 Neapolitan cut, except a few which I note below. The polo coats are, as usual, really killer-looking. I also like the single-breasted topcoat in the large gray herringbone cloth, which strikes me as a really versatile not-too-dressy, not-too-casual topcoat fabric that would look equally good with suits as it would with a pair of jeans and a sweater. Click the images to go to the product, or they’re all linked below that.
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Sport Coats
Large glen check with green overcheck
Navy donegal (normal 2-button fit)
Brown donegal (normal 2-button fit)
Light gray donegal (normal 2-button fit)
Coats
Peacoat in “oatmeal” donegal wool
Peacoat in charcoal herringbone
Polo coat in mid-brown herringbone
Polo coat in brown donegal wool
