Blazer
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A blazer is a type of jacket resembling a suit jacket, but cut more casually. A blazer is generally distinguished from a sport coat as a more formal garment and tailored from solid colour fabrics. Blazers often have naval-style metal buttons to reflect their origin as jackets worn by boating club members.[1]
A blazer's cloth is usually durable, as it is intended as outdoor wear. Blazers are often part of a uniform that denotes, for example, an airline's employees, pupils of a particular school, members of sports clubs, or sportsmen and women on a particular team.
Wear
Blazers are worn with a wide variety of clothes, ranging from a dress shirt and necktie to an open-necked polo shirt, or even just a plain T-shirt. They are seen with trousers of all colours and fabrics, from the classic white cotton or linen, to grey flannel, to brown or beige chinos, and also jeans.
A fitted, classically cut, double-breasted navy blue blazer with navy-style buttons is a popular design and sometimes referred to as a "reefer" blazer. Particularly in North America and the United Kingdom, it is now frequently used in business casual attire.
Blazers, in a wide range of colours, are worn as part of
Where the blazer is part of the dress of a school, college, sports club, or armed service regimental association (veterans' organization), it is normal for a badge to be sewn to the breast pocket. In schools, this badge may vary according to the pupil's standing in the school: being a member of the junior or senior school, being a prefect, or having been awarded colours in recognition of particular achievement in some academic or sporting field. In the Commonwealth, many regimental associations wear "regimental blazers" which also sport a similar badge on the breast pocket, usually in the form of a wire badge, and sometimes also regimental blazer buttons.
In the British army, officers do not normally wear badges on their blazers (or boating jackets). Two regimental blazers will rarely be the same, as they are sourced from different civilian suppliers and are not issued by any authority. This results from the fact that the members of the association are no longer serving personnel, but civilians, though still retaining the bond that the badge represents. The standard colour is navy blue, although in some associations different colours are worn, such as
Blazers, once commonly worn playing or attending traditional "gentlemen's sports", persist in only some games now, such as occasional use by tennis players, or in cricket, where in professional matches, such as international test matches, it is considered customary for the captain to wear a blazer with the team's logo or national coat of arms on the breast pocket – at least during the coin toss at the beginning of the match.
Two sporting events where blazers signify victory are the Congressional Cup Regatta, at the Long Beach Yacht Club, California, and the Masters golf tournament, held in Augusta, Georgia. The former event awards a crimson blazer to the winner of the regatta, while the latter awards a green blazer to the winner of the Masters.
History
The sartorial term blazer originated with the red "blazers" of the
These early blazers were like later sports jackets, but this term has never referred to blazers, instead describing jackets derived from the later innovation of wearing odd jackets for land-based sports. Assertions that the name is derived from HMS Blazer are not borne out by contemporary sources, although it is reported that before the
The reefer jacket was of naval origin, and described the short double-breasted jacket worn by sailors in harsh weather, when they performed duties such as reefing the sails. It is descendants of this which are now commonly described by the term blazer. Originally with black horn buttons, these jackets evolved to the modern dark blazer, now single as well as double breasted, and with metallic buttons.
Striped blazers became popular among British
By the late 2000s the blazer had been adopted as a popular fashion trend amongst women, often having shorter lengths, rolled-up sleeves, various lapels and bright colours.
See also
- Sport coat
- Suit
References
- ^ "How to Buy a Blazer," The Esquire How-to Style Guide, esquire.com, July 2009, accessed 23 June 2012
- ^ Farmer, John (1900). The Public School Word-book: A Contribution to a Historical Glossary of Words, Phrases, and Turns of Expression Obsolete and in Present Use, Peculiar to Our Great Public Schools, Together with Some that Have Been Or are Modish at the Universities. Hirscheld Brothers. p. 243. Retrieved 10 December 2021.
- ^ The History of Rating Uniforms : Uniforms and Badges of Rank : RN Life : Training and People : Royal Navy
- ISBN 0-85112-713-4.
- ^ Talbot-Booth, E.C. (1940). All the World's Fighting Fleets (4th ed.). London: Sampson Low, Marston & Co. Ltd.[page needed]
External links
Media related to Blazers at Wikimedia Commons
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