Remember a few years ago when Jeremy Clarkson temporarily pivoted from car bore to de facto voice of the nation, and loads of curious folk kept saying he should be prime minister? Well those petrol heads may have been on to something. Not politically speaking, obviously – that would be a terrible idea – but in terms of his style. Yep. I’ve just said that. Mad, isn’t it?
Jez is not simply a proponent of the jeans and blazer combo, he is the high priest of stonewash. The doyen of dad denim. A hero that strides the fine line between casual and smart/casual. Simply the greatest…. In the woooorld. Was he one of the key inspirations for Balenciaga’s now iconic father-figure-focused Spring/Summer ’18 collection? We can only speculate. But creative director Demna Gvasalia didn’t dress his models like Richard ‘The Hammond Hamster’ Hammond or James May, did he?
That collection, shown in the summer of 2017, set confused fashion tongues wagging. The pairing of blazers and jeans was officially not cool, but Balenciaga was officially the coolest, and it knocked the style pack for six. Suddenly they had to invest in mid-blue straight-leg denim, clompy shoes, oversized jackets and crumpled dodgy stripe shirts - things everyone’s actual real dad had in abundance, and things they had been doing their utmost to avoid for years. The collection went on sale at the start of 2018, and the trend slowly eked into real life. I haven’t seen a lot of people rocking the full Balenciaga-Brian look, though. Trendy dudes have cherry picked elements such as the big square shoulder jackets, the lads-in-year-11 shoes etc., and worn them with other de-rigeur jawns.
But Gvasalia was not the first designer to put the holy duo of denim and blazer together. Ralph Lauren has been doing it for over five decades - he wears tuxedo jackets with jeans, cowboy boots and a bolo tie, and still looks mega at the ripe old age of 79 – and Helmut Lang was a famous advocate of the look in the Nineties, be it in a much cleaner, more pared-down way. In 2013, Hedi Slimane’s first menswear show for Saint Laurent was abound with blazers and super skinny denim (which was and seemingly still is the designer’s own daily uniform), and he has carried the aesthetic on to the first men’s clothes at Celine, which we saw in January.
In an interview for Esquire ahead of his first collection for Tiger of Sweden – Autumn/Winter 2018 - creative director Christoffer Lundman praised the combination of blue jeans, black jacket and a white shirt as ‘iconic’. And to bring us full circle, Junya Watanabe’s recent Autumn/Winter 2019 show was stuffed full of middle aged men in denim and blazers. The designer deftly demonstrated that it absolutely is possible to make the look work withouth even a hint of Clarkson. Watanabe showed that the trick lies in not wearing the outfit too heavily. You need to be a bit bohemian, a bit frayed, a bit tumbled. This is not what you wear to look smart – that’s what a suit is for – you wear it to demonstrate your mastery of (or interest in, at least) proportion and colour, and appreciation of good fabrics.
I haven’t worn a blazer and jeans since I was a Wiltshire barman, but I’ve dabbled recently, and I like it. My lewk of choice is as follows: Slim black Levis or white twill trousers from YMC that have had their hems hacked off, so they’re not only much shorter (a good two inches above my shoes) but all raggedy, too. If you’d rather not slash your trousers down to size then you can probably find some that are appropriate length. A very well-dressed pal of mine swears by Japanese denim brand Orslow’s 107 cut. The shoes are black apron-toe lace ups with a chunky sole from Mr P. The shoes need to be chunkier than your average. Like good pickle.
Then a woven black leather belt (to make it even more dad-ish), a stripy poplin shirt (tucked in with most of the buttons undone) over a plain white tee or Sunspel vest (if I’m feeling saucy) and a double-breasted Prince of Wales check blazer. Unlined and unstructured, it drapes very bloody well, but it might be a touch too well cut for this purpose.
If you don’t have ingredients of your own, I’d point you in the direction of your nearest charity shop or vintage store. They’re jammed with worn-soft jackets in strange stripes and creepy checks. Nothing shiny or smelly though. And no tweed or pastel colours, this look is more about middle age grunge than it is sartorial jollity. For those that want new stuff, see the gallery below.
