Spotlight on Sportscoats

I am happily back from a few weeks of travel after spending time in Milan with our Mills. Working with our mill partners is always a pleasure, and in particular, understanding what is working in their global markets can help us understand our own Clients and how their needs may be trending. This doesn’t necessarily reflect fashion trends but rather what clients are looking for within our assortment. Undoubtedly, in the last few seasons, the idea of statement sportscoats has been leading most fabric collections of our mills, which also reflects what we see with our own J.Hilburn current demand. Whilst it is a clear shift, unfortunately, this is somewhat cause for concern for the mills with suiting taking a back seat, and the need for more sportcoat qualities, patterns, and color depletes the production and is not as profitable with brands consuming less yardage across all markets with negative impact to the industry as a whole.

You, too, may be seeing more sportscoats than suits at the moment, or it could even be something you may have missed if you are just looking at your overall sales. With that said, we have plenty of beautiful sportscoats available for Spring in our current assortment, which means we need to complete his looks with coordinated shirting, trousers, pants, and knits. With the new watercolor palette of our collection, this should be seamless, with the Sportscoat being the centerpiece and the other pieces working around to create stylish looks for his lifestyle. The new soft palette is used widely across our sportscoats at every price point with new fabrics providing you multiple options in wools and seasonal blends with silk and linen. Each Sportcoat pattern is what I sometimes refer to as a jokingly as “pant-eater”, meaning that they can be worn with multiple colors in pants, and each pattern probably has three or more different pant options that can coordinate effortlessly back to it. The new shirting has been chosen to help showcase colors in dress and casual fabrics with subtle patterns and the return of stripes. Alternatively, knit combinations can either compliment or reinforce the color messaging, whether one of the new pinks, apricots, pale blues, or sage greens. Adding a neutral casual pant seems to be the way most men are wanting to wear the new season’s color, and our new Italian Eco-performance seems to already be a winner with clients who are loving the lightweight stretch characteristic of this pant. It even works really nicely with Sportscoats. Your stylist can help with outfitting, having conversations about how to wear, and always finish with the right accessories.

Sportscoats may be a place to start an appointment to explore this macro trend. Of course, with the wedding season ahead of us, we will see the need for suiting, of course, and we believe we have great options, especially for a younger client perhaps trying custom-made for the first time as part of a wedding group.