Style and Parenting / December 7, 2023

Outfit Of The Week 12/3/23 – 12/9/23

For this week’s edition of “OOTW”, I have chosen to highlight an outfit I wore to the office. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a full-body photo because every time I went into the men’s room there was someone else there and I felt strange pulling out my camera in that environment.

Anyway, I don’t go into my office frequently and I tend to stick to the same basic formula each time, outfit-wise, since there really isn’t any reason to switch it up. I wrote about this some time ago when I laid out the perfect business casual uniform.

Even though I don’t stray too far from what works, I wanted to make this outfit a little more formal since it was the day of my company holiday party.

I took the usual combination of chinos, sport coat, oxford shirt, sweater, and brown shoes and altered it ever so slightly.

For my sport coat, I opted for a dark navy and burgundy check lambswool from Charles Tyrwhitt.

I like this jacket for its softness and subtle pattern. I have actually received multiple compliments on the street while wearing this jacket. The only downside is that lint sticks to it since it’s pretty fuzzy, but a quick once-over with a lint roller and it looks good as new.

Another benefit of this jacket is that it’s fully-lined. It was pretty chilly the other morning on the train platform and NYC was pretty windy, so I was using my sport coat as outerwear, essentially. The fact that the jacket had a complete lining made it a pretty effective outer layer.

That’s a good thing to keep in mind when you’re buying a jacket. If you plan on using it as both a fashion item and a piece of outerwear, then I recommend a jacket with a full lining.

My pocket square was a simple, white, linen handkerchief. I wanted to be as understated as possible, so the white linen got the call over something with a pattern or color.

My sweater was my navy, cashmere, v-neck. I don’t know what brand this sweater is, as my in-laws got this for me as a gift a few years ago. It’s by far the softest cashmere sweater I own.

Under the sweater was my trusty, white, oxford-cloth-button-down from Lands’ End. I opted for white since white is a little more formal than blue. It’s still an oxford shirt, so it’s not formal but I liked the stark contrast between the white shirt and the dark jacket and sweater.

For my trousers, I went with a pair of charcoal, wool trousers from Men’s Wearhouse.

I bought these some years ago on a pretty significant sale. They are high-rise and in their traditional fit so they are quite full-cut, which I like. I got them tailored with a cuff of 1.5 inches. I find anything more than that starts to drift in “trendy” territory. The picture actually makes them look much slimmer and shorter than they really are.

Again, I went with the dark, wool trousers instead of the regular khakis in order to dial up the formality a bit. I also went with suspenders instead of a belt which made it so my trousers stayed in place all day.

My shoes were my black, cap-toe, oxfords from Charles Tyrwhitt. I always have trouble finding shoes that fit and these are a decent enough pair. I don’t know what kind of leather they are, but they don’t really ever need to be shined. They don’t show scuffs very much and I just wipe them off before I put them on and they look great.

My socks were a knee-high wool-blend from Gold Toe. I always like knee-high socks, but sometimes, depending on what pants I am wearing, the trouser leg gets caught up on my calf. That’s one reason I like having a cuff on my trousers, since they add a little bit of weight to the hem of the pants and keep them in place.

On my commute, I wrapped up in a black, cashmere scarf and wore black leather gloves from Ugg.