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How to Wear A Men's Suit Jacket With Jeans - How To Pull Off Denim & Suit Jackets - Style
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Hi! I'm Antonio Centeno, the founder of Real Men Real Style. And today, I'm going to be
talking about wearing a suit jacket with jeans, how can a man do it, and things you need to
look out for.
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article which I've gone in and I talk about all these points, and that's right down there
below. And finally, if you want to learn more about men's style, I've got this great 47-page
e-book and if you haven't read it, you need to grab it.
Okay, so this is something that I've written about, I've had people asking me about. How
do you wear a suit jacket with jeans? There are going to be people out there, especially
on the forums and they're going to say, "Never wear a suit jacket with jeans," and these
are the same guys that you should never spend less than $500 on a pair of dress shoes and
some other things.
At the end of the day, we want to make better use of the clothing we have. A lot of us find
that we've got a suit, it's older, we've torn the trousers, maybe we’ve lost the trousers,
but in any case, we've got this jacket and we want to make use of it because gosh, we
spent money on it and we want to get the most out of our money and make use of that jacket.
There are three things which I think you need to pay attention to.
1. You need to look at the type of jacket. 2. You need to look at the type of jeans you're
going to be wearing it with. 3. You need to look at the occasion that you'd
be wearing the jeans with the suit jacket.
I'm not talking about sports jackets and jeans here, nor am I talking about blazers and jeans.
Those are separate subjects and those are their own animal because when you're talking
about a suit jacket, you're talking about a jacket that was actually made as a suit.
It wasn't made as an odd jacket. It was made as a suit jacket to be worn with a pair of
suit trousers. At some point, we've lost the suit trousers.
Now, let me throw out the one point. If this is your only suit and it's a good suit and
again, it's your only suit, you do not want to be wearing that suit jacket or those trousers
separate. You want to keep those together because if that's your only suit, you only
have that because of special occasions, of weddings, of funerals, of times when you just
need to have that suit. And when you need that suit, because you don't wear it every
day, you're not going to -- there are all these other factors you're going to be worried
about.
You do not want to go to grab that and find that, "Wow! I've worn this jacket 20 times.
I've worn the pair of trousers once, and wow, there's a different shade of color here,"
because when you wear something and you're out in the sun for hours and hours, it can
adjust the color. If you send it off to the cleaners by itself without the trousers, all
of a sudden, you'll see a bit of fade and you're not going to see it until you're out
in the sunlight or you're under a light, which all of a sudden, wow, that doesn’t even
look like a suit anymore. So make sure if that's your only suit, you do not try to wear
it with jeans.
I'm talking about the case in which you've got a jacket and you're trying to make sense.
"Hey, can I use this?" Maybe you're in a thrift store and you find this old suit jacket, but
you think it could go good with jeans.
Okay, so let's get back to the three points.
1. The type of jacket
First, try it on. Does it fit you? If it doesn’t fit you and it can't be adjusted to fit you,
don't go any farther. You don't want to wear this.
The second part is the style. Now, does this suit jacket look like it's from the 1970s?
Maybe that's your style. Maybe you're in a creative field and you're trying to pull this
off. You've got the huge lapels there or you've got a little bit of psychedelic color. If
that's your style, go for it. You can go to the next point. But if it's not and you're
just breaking into this, don't go past this.
Number three, let's look at the fabric, okay. If it's a navy blue, well, one thing that
you can do if it fits you and the style is good, change out those buttons and all of
a sudden, you've got a blazer. That’s pretty cool. And when you change out those buttons,
which you can do yourself or pay a seamstress or tailor that'll cost you 15 to 20 bucks,
you go buy the buttons at Joann's or buy them online, in any case, all of a sudden that
doesn’t look like a suit. You've actually turned that into a blazer because that’s
basically what a blazer is, is a jacket that’s got the whole Nautical theme.
I've got a blazer and I put mother of pearl buttons on. You can put a wide variety of
buttons on there, but you want to upgrade from the plastic or just the very plain Jane
looking buttons on a navy suit because otherwise, it's going to look like a navy suit that you're
trying to wear as a blazer, so go ahead and make the full transformation for it.
Now, if it's a dark grey suit or a grey suit, I find that's kind of in the iffy area. I
actually don't like grey jackets. I think that you should keep your trousers grey and
then you can change everything else around the trousers, but that's a case by case basis.
I say "no" on greys. Black, you can pull that off in the evening. That's more of like a
night look and if you've got the right color hair. If you've got black hair, you can pull
off black. If you've got blonde hair with light skin, don't go black. It's going to
be too stark of a contrast, but black again is pretty iffy, but I'll lean "yes" on that.
Greys, iffy, but I'll lean "no" on that. Light greys are the only exception and light greys
can be worn as sports jackets. I've seen that especially if you've wearing them with a darker
pair of jeans, I think it can look pretty good.
Tweeds, so if you find a tweed jacket that was once a part of a tweed suit, you're gold
because tweed is one of the most popular sports jackets fabrics. Basically, at the end of
the day, you want this suit jacket that you're going to try to wear as a sports jacket basically,
you want it to look like it didn’t necessarily belong with a suit. It was an odd jacket,
and when I say odd jacket, that means that it was made not necessarily to be with a matching
pair of trousers.
So tweeds, herringbones, all of those things that have a check pattern in them or a windowpane,
that's great because it looks a bit eccentric. I mean, it still got the form and the shape
of a good jacket, but the fabric is a little bit out there and that's exactly what you
want to look for in a sports jacket.
2. Jeans
Let's look at that denim. Let's look at those jeans. If you're a young man and if you're
in a rock band, then go ahead and go for the faded look with torn-up. Go for it. If you're
not in a rock band or you're not super fashion advanced, you want to go for dark, well-fitted,
slim jeans that are going to look good. I'm not talking skinny jeans. I'm talking just
jeans that fit your body type.
Obviously, if you're a big guy, you're not going to want to wear slim jeans. The darker
jeans, I really like them because usually when you're wearing a jacket, you're kind
of upping the ante. You're becoming a little bit dressier. And the slim, dark, well-fitted
jeans, they just look better with it in my opinion. You can go with medium colored jeans.
Just don't go with the dad jeans that aren't fitted very well. I mean, I'm a dad myself,
but I don't wear jeans that -- well, probably a good example is to look at Joseph Biden,
the Vice President. Well, don't look at him in a pair of jeans. It's not a pretty sight.
3. The occasion
Is this an event which you can even pull off something like this because wearing a suit
jacket with a pair of dark, high quality denim that let's say cost you 200 bucks, that's
still not a suit and it doesn’t equate to one. And if they're asking for suits to be
worn, you need to have a proper suit. But if this is a casual affair or a business casual
event in a town like, let's say, Austin, Texas or Madison, Wisconsin, you can probably pull
it off.
You need to know where you're taking it though. It's a little bit of an advanced style technique
and something that I think a lot of men can pull off if they just look into it. I think
it always looks better than even a guy wearing a pear of khakis and a dress shirt and a tie.
I personally can rock a pair of denim with western boots, with one of my nice custom-made
sports jackets. That's the benefit of being a custom clothier.
I don't like to wear a tie very often and I feel that look suits me and suits where
I come from. At the end of the day, you need to be comfortable. Practice wearing it. Look
at yourself in the mirror. Look at the shoulder pads, too, on the suit. I'm jumping back to
what type of jacket it is, but if the shoulder pads are too structured, it may not work well.
Try to go for something with natural shoulders. Unless you have no shoulder build at all,
then you'd want to go with a bit of a structured shoulder.
All right, so that is how you wear a suit jacket with jeans. I'll see you in the next
video. Bye-bye.