admin Sport Coats: For simplicity’s sake, let’s say that sport coats are just like blazers, but patterned. They also skew a bit more casual, so they’re particularly well-suited (sorry) to wearing with jeans, chinos, or your flashiest pair of trackpants, Richie Tenenbaum style.
Suit Jackets: You know what a suit is, right? Suit jackets are the part of the set you don’t put your legs through. They’re also the most formal of the tailoring options here, and the hardest to wear as separates for that reason.
Got the jargon down? Let’s go shopping. Below you’ll find the absolute best blazers for men on the market right now, from capital-D designer versions courtesy of the biggest names in the biz to achingly hip options from smaller, but no less beloved, menswear upstarts. (Inserts Canadian maple leaf emoji) It’s time to blaze up, baby.
The Best All-Around Blazer
We’ve extolled the virtues of Sid Mashburn’s tailoring at length before, so we might as well make it official: the Atlanta haberdasher’s signature Kincaid blazer is one of the best on the market. The brand’s Kincaid No. 3 jacket is a perennial GQ favorite for a few reasons. Visually speaking, there’s little in the way of splashy design flourishes or distracting aesthetic tics. Instead, it comes kitted out with the type of sartorial minutiae—full canvassing, pick stitching, spalla camicia sleeves—hardcore menswear enthusiasts lose their minds over. (And that’s not even getting into the fabric’s Italian origins!) It’s also slightly less structured than the other jackets in the brand’s repertoire, so it naturally lends itself towards easy mixing and matching—layered over a fuzzy shetland sweater, for example, or paired with a striped Oxford-cloth shirt and a repp tie. Most importantly, its timeless design and quality construction means it’ll look just as good tomorrow as it will ten years from now—and ten years from then, too.
The Best Budget Blazer
Your buddy’s wedding is coming up and, as one does, you totally put off shopping for a suit. Mercifully, this is one of those vaguely semi-semi-formal weddings (what does “mild casual” even mean?!) where you can dress pretty chill, but not, like, hoodie and jorts chill. When you’re low on time and and favors you can pull, you totally could drop a bag on a sport coat you’ll only wear once or twice. Or you could do the smart thing and head down to your local Uniqlo and relieve yourself of the headache in, like, twenty minutes, max. The Japanese retailer’s sport coat is made with a lightweight wool-like fabric comes off as way more expensive than it is, and is cut with a classic but certainly not frumpy silhouette that’ll save you from having to go to the tailor and beg for a rush job. At a meager $80, it’s far and way the best bargain on this list—and that’s saying something.
The Best Standard-Setting Blazer
For well over a decade, J.Crew’s Ludlow suit held down the affordable suiting throne, a high-quality, approachable riff on the type of slim tailoring sent down the runway by the brand’s designer counterparts. For much of the 2010s, the Ludlow reigned supreme; if you wanted an affordable suit cut the GQ way you knew exactly where to get it. But as tailoring proportions gradually swung in the opposite direction, the Ludlow lost a bit of its luster. So J.Crew quietly introduced the Kenmare a few seasons ago as a response. The looser and altogether more relaxed silhouette designed to appeal to dudes who want to wear a suit for the sheer thrill of it—not because their 9 to 5 requires them to. The cut is still classic enough to sync up with an Oxford-cloth shirt and brogues, but its relaxed vibe naturally lends itself to wearing as separates, with a faded pair of jeans and cowboy boots or a scuzzy mohair cardigan and derbies. And for the price, there are scant other options made with the same quality or panache. It comes in a variety of fabrics from solid navy to houndstooth and plaid, so you don’t be surprised if you have trouble choosing just one.
The Best Double-Breasted Blazer
In the finger-wagging parlance of classic menswear, a blazer is typically defined by two distinguishing details: a solid-colored cloth, often in navy, and contrasting metal buttons, often in brass. Ralph Lauren’s expertly-crafted wool jacket checks both boxes, sure, but that’s where its adherence to convention ends. Cut with soft shoulders and brash peak lapels, the brand’s double-breasted blazer also features a lower button stance that makes for a universally flattering shape, no matter your build. It’s a high-quality riff on an enduring American silhouette that’ll anchor your most formal fits just as ably as it’ll elevate your most casual ones: in other words, it’s quintessential Ralph.
The Best “Actually, It’s a Sport Coat” Blazer
If the Ralph Lauren blazer above represents the ne plus ultra of the form, Todd Snyder’s epitomizes the sport coat at its best—a patterned jacket specifically designed for solo wear. The fabric is woven out of a swanky linen and silk blend, cut in a gorgeous houndstooth fabric that quietly nods to your tailoring know-how. It’s the kind of sport coat you’d expect to see on a tenured PhD teaching a summer course on Kant, though to really maximize its mileage, you can—and should!—wear it with a plain tee and billowy shorts like you’re fronting an Armani campaign from the ’90. Oh, and it comes in a handful of equally debonair materials for you to drool over.
The Best Blazer for WFH Life
What more is there to say about Issey Miyake’s signature pleated sets that hasn’t already been said—in glowing, superlative form—on this very site? In February, we called the brand’s instantly identifiable pleated jersey “as resilient and wrinkle-averse as your hardest Carhartt gear, but also more graceful and effortlessly polished than a Charlie Parker solo.” At the height of the pandemic, we praised the brand’s pants for their comfort and endless versatility, to say nothing of their ability to make everything else you’re wearing look a little more considered. In blazer form, it’s a sentiment that rings doubly true. With return-to-office plans still in flux, this is the jacket to reach for when slogging through the same exact Zoom meetings with the same exact people starts to feel preposterously tedious. We didn’t know WFH salvation would arrive in the form of an impossibly lightweight polyester layer, but we’re sure glad it did.
The Best Blazer for a Big Night Out
It’s a balmy evening and you’re staring at a closet jammed haphazardly with the clothes that helped you survive winter. The Aperol’s flowing freely, Robyn’s wailing balefully about her ex on the speaker, and the air is pregnant with opportunity…to get a really big fit off. When that time comes, dear reader, skip the denim trucker or the lightweight blouson and reach for a cotton blazer instead. More specifically, reach for Gucci’s, a tour de force of sexed-up tailoring doused in the brand’s signature ‘70s glamour. The pitch-black cotton canvas is wildly luxurious and the tonal GG motif is slightly iridescent enough to pull anyone in for a closer look. It’s broad, roped shoulders and nipped waist give the wearer the unbridled power of a disco icon, brandishing gyrating hips and groovy dance moves. All that’s left is to pull on some flared trousers and sleek boots, finish your spritz, and then waltz out into the unknown: it’s going to be a great night.
The Best Blazer That Feels More Like a Chore Coat
Okay, you might be thinking to yourself. I get it. I need a blazer I can wear with more than just dizzying geometric ties and pebble-grain brogues. But I’m still struggling to wrap my head around this whole casual tailoring thing. We hear you and we see you, friend—and that’s exactly where Alex Mill’s rough-and-tumble riff on the genre comes in. Its silhouette skews closer to a chore coat than a tux, it’s cut from the same garment-dyed cotton the brand uses to make its famous chinos (not to mention an extremely tasty, thick corduroy fabric), and it’s an easy entry point into the world of casual tailoring that won’t invite jeers from the lads at the bar. Plus, the fabric is crisp and soft, the fit is structured but not stuffy, and it comes in a duo of easy-wearing colors should you decide you need a full on casual tailoring rotation—and trust us, you just might.
