Jackets & Coats

Layering Room Is Built into the Pattern

A tailored blazer is drafted to sit over a shirt. A winter coat is drafted to sit over a sweater. That difference is built into the pattern rather than added by taking a larger size, which is why sizing up a blazer gives you a longer, wider blazer rather than a coat. Try outerwear over the thickest thing you intend to wear under it, because the shoulder and the upper arm are where it binds first. Sleeve length is the measurement to check second, since a coat sleeve should cover the cuff of whatever is underneath rather than end level with it.

What a Lining Changes

A lining does three jobs and warmth is only one of them. It lets a sleeve slide over a knit rather than dragging on it, it hides the construction seams, and it takes the wear that would otherwise fall on the outer fabric. An unlined jacket will always catch on knitwear at the sleeve, which is the usual reason a coat gets left on the hook. Quilted construction works differently: the stitching holds the fill in place, so the pattern of the quilting tells you where the warmth actually sits.

Storing Outerwear Between Seasons

More coats are ruined in storage than in wear. Shoulders lose their shape on a thin wire hanger, and the damage is permanent once the padding has creased. Use a broad shouldered hanger and give a coat room on either side, because pressure from neighboring garments sets creases that never quite come out. Storing anything wool clean matters for a separate reason: moths are drawn to the residue rather than the fiber, so a coat put away unworn since its last clean is safer than one worn twice more.

For the knitwear these are sized to go over, the range is in Cardigans & Knitwear, and the full clothing range is in Apparel.