The Overshirt Has Taken the Blazer’s Job

For a decade the overshirt was what you wore when you could not be bothered with a jacket. This autumn it has become the jacket for men who rarely wear one. The change is in the cloth and the cut.

Permanent Style’s new Autumn Overshirt, introduced in September, is a fair indicator. It is made in London from an 11oz English herringbone of wool with 5% cashmere, partially lined across the back and sleeves so it slides on over a knit, and finished with dark horn buttons. Simon Crompton describes it as pushed “closer to a jacket than an overshirt.” In Milan, Zegna showed lighter overshirts without pockets, designed purely for layering, and Boglioli’s autumn campaign puts checked wool and olive overshirts alongside its soft tailoring as equals rather than understudies.

## How to wear it
- Choose wool, flannel, moleskin or cord. Washed cotton twill reads as weekend; wool reads as work.
- Size for a sweater underneath. Crompton advises going up a size if you plan to layer a knit.
- Treat it as a jacket: grey flannel or brown trousers, a cashmere crewneck, suede loafers. Indoors it comes off and you are still dressed.
- For a dressier day, wear it over an oxford shirt and a knitted tie, a combination Crompton suggests himself.
- With jeans, pick a dark or a pale wash rather than a heavily faded blue.

The overshirt does not replace tailoring outright, and Crompton is clear that he will always defend the jacket. But for the man whose office has no dress code and whose diary runs from school run to client lunch, a well-made wool overshirt solves more problems than a blazer does, and it never looks as if it is trying.