Blazers: Look for wool but not always

There is much less written about women’s suiting than men’s given women have so many other choices for their work wardrobe. Even if suits are not your thing though, it is a good idea to have a suit for formal occasions and if not a suit, at least a solid blazer.

In men’s suiting there is a little bit of a division of blazers into the suit jacket (as formal and as fitting as it gets, made with matching pants), the blazer (no matching pants), and the sports jacket (with detailing and other more “casual” bells and whistles). But the rules galore that exist for men’s suiting (e.g. see this) are less a thing for women. Alas I will call all these jackets blazers for the purposes of this post, but note that there are different blazers for different occasions.

The point of this post though is to convince you yo pay attention to the fabric of the blazers you buy, if you are not going to have many. And because you probably don’t have much time to spend reading blog posts, I’m going to do it in the form of:

THREE REASONS TO BUY WOOL

1. Wool is a natural fabric (feels great)

Wool is definitely the preferred fabric for suits and one reason why is that it is natural and this means that it will absorb moisture and breathe. Basically, you will be comfortable in it (you will also sweat less in it and that means a smaller dry cleaning bill). It being natural also means it has a lower carbon footprint than synthetics.

Wool can also be woven to be heavier or lighter meaning your wool suits can be ALL SEASON.

2. Wool looks better

Style aside, wool fabrics sit on the body better and keep their shape and structure over time. By contrast for instance, not only can polyester wrinkle easily, polyester suits are known for wearing down quickly at points of friction. This results in the dreaded shiny patches on fabric after some use.

This Banana Republic blazer is 50% wool and I am able to basically roll it into a ball in my purse and have it still be wearable and wrinkle free when I need it.

3. Wool is more durable

In the height of fast fashion, this factor maybe be overlooked but wool somehow outperforms a number of synthetics (ahem, polyester) in terms of how long it lasts before it needs to be replaced. This helps make up for the fact that wool is more expensive, which it mostly definitely is.

This brings us to BLENDS.

BLENDS

Beyond the fact that natural fabrics are more expensive, they require extra effort to take care of (e.g. the polyester can go in the laundry machine). We are fortunately at a point where there are many choices of blends for women’s suits and blazers! In opting for blends, you might not be able to get the best of all worlds, but you can try to get the good of many.

This Judith and Charles piece is 12% wool, with 60% polyester content.