The boating blazer is the jacket people talk themselves out of. Too loud, too summery, only about three weeks a year in this country when you could get away with it. We hear that every May and we have never agreed with a word of it.
Worn properly, a striped boating blazer is the sharpest thing a mod can put on between April and September, and it is the only jacket in the wardrobe whose origin you can trace to one rowing club in one specific year.
Cambridge, 1825, and a Red Flannel Jacket
The Lady Margaret Boat Club at St John's College, Cambridge, was founded in 1825 and is the oldest rowing club at the university. Its crews wore bright red flannel jackets, and the story told ever since is that the colour was so strong that people started calling them blazers, from blazing. That is where the word comes from. Every navy jacket with brass buttons in every department store in the country owes its name to a rowing club kit list.
Lady Margaret crews still wear the same red today, which is a useful reminder that this was uniform long before it was fashion. Uniform is also the reason the stripes exist at all, and once you know that, the whole design logic falls into place.
Regatta Stripes and Club Colours
Henley Royal Regatta began in 1839 and turned rowing into a social fixture with an audience. Clubs had to be identifiable at distance from a riverbank, so each one adopted a set of colours and put them on caps, socks, ties and jackets. Leander Club took pink and has kept it. Others settled on combinations that look eccentric on a hanger and made perfect sense through a pair of field glasses at three hundred yards.
That is the logic behind a proper boating stripe. It was a signal, so it had to be legible at speed. Which is exactly why the good ones use two colours, occasionally three, repeated at an even interval, and why a blazer carrying six colours never quite looks right on anybody. No club ever raced in six colours, so there is nothing there for the eye to hold onto.
Blazer, Club Blazer, Sports Jacket
Three jackets get lumped together in conversation and they behave nothing like each other. A boating blazer is striped, usually unlined or half lined, with patch pockets and a soft shoulder that follows your own. A club blazer is plain, normally navy, structured, and finished with metal buttons that are often crested. A sports jacket is an odd jacket in tweed or hopsack with a proper canvas inside it, and it is a winter garment whatever the weather does in October.
| Jacket | Cloth | Buttons | Shoulder |
|---|---|---|---|
| Boating blazer | Striped cotton or lightweight wool | Mother of pearl or horn | Soft, little or no padding |
| Club blazer | Plain navy hopsack or serge | Brass or gilt, often crested | Structured with padding |
| Sports jacket | Tweed, herringbone or hopsack | Horn or leather | Structured, roped sleevehead |
If you already own something from our mod suit jackets, you will feel the difference the moment you put a boating blazer on. There is far less structure holding you up, which is the point of a summer jacket, and it means the fit through the chest has to be right because nothing is going to disguise it.
Stripe Width Is the Whole Decision
Width decides everything else about the jacket. A pencil stripe of around five millimetres reads as a texture from across a room and behaves almost like a plain jacket, which makes it the easy option and slightly the dull one. A block stripe of twenty five millimetres or more is a statement, and it needs the rest of the outfit to stay completely silent underneath it.
We would point most people at the middle ground. Ten to fifteen millimetres in two colours has enough presence to be worth owning without dominating every photograph you appear in for the rest of the summer. Navy and burgundy is the safest pairing we sell. Bottle green with cream is the one we keep coming back to. Red and white sells steadily and we have no complaints about it, but it does leave you one straw boater short of a seaside pier act, so buy it knowing that.
What Goes Underneath
Keep it plain and let the jacket work. A white or pale blue Oxford shirt with a button down collar is the traditional answer and it has never once fought a stripe. A polo shirt in a single solid colour is the better summer option though, because it sits open at the neck and stops the whole outfit looking like you are on your way to somebody's wedding.
Trousers should be quiet. Sta Press in stone, cream or a pale grey does everything you need. White trousers work at a regatta and nowhere else, and we will defend that position against anyone. Loafers with a thin sock or none at all, and if you want a hat, keep it plain and keep it low. A trilby in a light felt sits with a striped jacket better than anything with a wide brim on it.
The Line Between Sharp and Fancy Dress
Here is where it tips over. A striped blazer plus a straw boater plus white trousers plus a cane is not an outfit, it is a village fete entry. Pick one loud element and let the jacket be it. If the blazer is doing the talking then everything below the waist should be a single flat colour, and everything above it should be one shade quieter than you think you can get away with.
The other way people fall over is fit. A boating blazer wants to be close through the chest and finish at the base of the seat, because it is a summer jacket, and the extra volume that a winter coat gets away with just looks like borrowed clothing here. Show a quarter inch of shirt cuff. Leave the sleeve buttons non functional so a tailor can shorten the sleeve, which on an unstructured jacket takes about twenty minutes and costs very little.
Boating Blazer FAQ
Stripe widths, cold weather and what belongs underneath, answered quickly.
- Why is it called a blazer? The name comes from the bright red flannel jackets worn by the Lady Margaret Boat Club at St John's College, Cambridge, founded in 1825. The colour was described as blazing, the nickname stuck, and it eventually attached itself to every jacket of that general shape.
- Can you wear a striped boating blazer in winter? You can, but it will look wrong and you will be cold. The cloth is light, the jacket is barely lined and the colours read as summer to everybody who sees you. Save it for April through to September and wear tweed or a mod suit jacket the rest of the year.
- What stripe width should I choose? Ten to fifteen millimetres in two colours is the width we recommend to most people. It has real presence without taking over. Go narrower if you want something you can wear weekly, and only go to a block stripe if you are comfortable being the most visible person in the room.
- Should a boating blazer be worn with a tie? It works either way. A knitted tie in a solid colour looks right with a narrow stripe. With a bold block stripe we would skip the tie entirely and wear a plain polo, because two patterns fighting at the collar rarely ends well.
- What trousers go with a striped blazer? Plain, pale and flat. Stone, cream or light grey Sta Press or a flat front cotton trouser. Avoid anything patterned, avoid denim, and treat white trousers as a regatta only decision.