Featured | Menswear

The Blazer with a Hoodie? Yep, It’s Legitimately a Thing Now

JW Lewis

A blaz­er with a hood­ie?  Come on, right?  To some, the phrase itself is an oxy­moron.  Two duel­ing cloth­ing arti­cles that have no place being seen or worn togeth­er.  We know some enthu­si­asts will lament the slow ero­sion of for­mal, tra­di­tion­al menswear for “ath­leisure” or casu­al attire.  We get it.  Regard­less, wear­ing a blaz­er with a hood­ie is no longer just anoth­er street style but a tran­scen­dent, main­stream look.

Like most new fash­ion trends, the more you see it the more you begin to accept it and poten­tial­ly even like it.  In this episode of UNFUSED, we break down how this trend emerged along with a few suc­cess­ful looks you can pull off.

blazer-with-hoodie

Lebron James — one of the orig­i­nals who helped pop­u­lar­ize the blaz­er / hood­ie com­bo

 


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The History of the Blazer with a Hoodie

Though it’s tough to pin down a defin­i­tive ori­gin, our research on the sto­ry traces the look’s lin­eage (geo­graph­i­cal­ly) to the North­east — cir­ca late 1990s / ear­ly 00s.  As many can remem­ber and attest, male prep schools had (and still have) strict dress codes, e.g. shirt, tie, blaz­er, dress shoes, etc…  When it reached frigid temps, stu­dents were able to cov­er the shirt / tie with a sweater.  Many chose to forego / replace the sweater with a hood­ed sweat­shirt, result­ing in the sig­na­ture hood­ed flap look that you see as the hood­ie rests against the blaz­er lapels.

Many NBA play­ers, i.e. Lebron James, Chris Paul, Kyrie Irv­ing, etc… attend­ed for­mal sports prep schools dur­ing those years, adopt­ed the look, and car­ried it over to the NBA — giv­ing it a new life entire­ly as a street style essen­tial.  Mod­ern street style at it’s core is about mix­ing dis­sim­i­lar arti­cles (e.g. a for­mal piece with a casu­al / ath­let­ic piece) to ulti­mate­ly craft a unique­ly, styl­ish look.

hoodie with blazer Chris Paul

Chris Paul rock­ing a bur­gundy blaz­er w/ white hood­ie

 

Ricky Rubio hoodie with blazer

Even the Euros (Ricky Rubio) have been known to rock the look

 


How to Wear (and not Wear) the Blazer with a Hoodie

The blaz­er / hood­ie look is whol­ly Amer­i­can due to the hood­ie itself, which has become an instant­ly rec­og­niz­able Amer­i­can fash­ion item.  What began as a util­i­tar­i­an piece of cloth­ing is now a main­stream fash­ion item attract­ing the atten­tion of most fash­ion hous­es.  Guc­ci, Dolce & Gabana, and Ver­sace are some of the more notable fash­ion hous­es that now sell ultra lux­u­ri­ous hood­ies ($$$$) as part of the core prod­uct line­up.  A $1000 hood­ie may have seemed insane a few years back but, it’s actu­al­ly out there.

hoodie with blazer from Gucci

A $1000 (YES $1000) Hood­ie from Guc­ci

Though the Guc­ci hood­ie may be a lux­u­ri­ous prod­uct, the beau­ty of this look in our eyes is pair­ing an oth­er­wise rea­son­ably priced item (the hood­ie) with a more tra­di­tion­al, for­mal piece such as a blaz­er.

For this look, we pre­fer sol­id, dark­er hued hood­ies.  We also pre­fer it with­out heavy graph­ics or embroi­dery.  Going with a dark­er, plain col­or-way will give the out­fit a sleek­er, more for­mal all around look.

The navy one below from Amer­i­can Giant is a per­fect, sta­ple hood­ie that we per­son­al­ly love.  As it’s name implies, all of Amer­i­can Giant’s are pro­duced domes­ti­cal­ly.  Made from a stur­dy, work­wear-inspired knit with a strong, no-non­sense feel, they’re built rugged out­side but soft inside — specif­i­cal­ly designed to lay­er all year round.

blazer with hoodie

One of our favorite hood­ies, 100% cot­ton, sol­id navy from Amer­i­can Giant ($84)

The look below is one of our favorites.  The dark slacks pair per­fect­ly with the dark hood­ie.  The speck­led char­coal wool blaz­er con­trasts effort­less­ly with every­thing.  The hood­ie is also more fit­ted / lighter which gives the ensem­ble the sleek­er look we’re after.  Bulki­er hood­ies are great for day to day activ­i­ties but for this look you want a more tapered fit.  Our pur­chas­ing advise is to buy your hood­ie a size down (XL to L) if you’re look­ing to com­plete this ensem­ble.

blazer with hoodie outfit

A sleek blaz­er with hood­ie ensem­ble

 

Anoth­er more basic ensem­ble is shown below. What we like about this one is that the blaz­er itself is one that most men already have — which makes this a look you can put togeth­er in min­utes.  Navy on navy is a sim­ple, effec­tive com­bo that you can nev­er go wrong with.  In order to give the look a bit more con­trast, it’s paired with a pair of kha­ki toned den­im.

If you’re not going to a super for­mal venue the out­fit — par­tic­u­lar­ly the soft, com­fy hoody is the per­fect piece of attire if you’re eat­ing out and plan to have a heavy meal.

navy hoodie with blazer

Easy and casu­al blaz­er / hood­ie look

With that being said, there are a few fash­ion ‘no-no’s’ you can make with this look.  The look below has a few red flags that should be read­i­ly appar­ent.  As we said ear­li­er, a bag­gy, loose hood­ie just won’t work.  First off, you’ll have to find a heavy, over­coat type of blaz­er to be able to fit over the hood­ie.  You can cer­tain­ly wear it with an over­coat but it’s not ide­al.  The look is too full and the bag­gy look frankly comes off as a bit slop­py.  Last­ly, the t-shirt exposed beneath the hood­ie just adds to the issues.  If you’re wear­ing a t-shirt, try to tuck it in so it’s not exposed below the belt line.

blazer with a hoodie - how to not wear it

How NOT to wear a blaz­er with a hood­ie

 


The Blazer with Hoodie Conclusion

We real­ly like this look.   Because it’s gained a bit of main­stream noto­ri­ety you can wear it around and pull it off as a trendy look.  The hood­ie makes it super com­fort­able (per­fect if you’re going out for a heavy meal) and it’s not that dif­fi­cult to assem­ble.  As such, this is one of the sim­pler guides we’ve put togeth­er in that our advise is super sim­ple.  1) Look for a slim, tapered hoody — prefer­ably a dark­er, sol­id hue (with­out too much embroi­dery or graph­ics) 2) Pair it with a dark, sol­id blaz­er.  Slacks or den­im is up to you — either will work depend­ing on the occa­sion.

 


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