Thrifty Thursday: Coated

Whenever I make a purchase, I think about whether the item is an addition to my wardrobe as a basic (button downs, denim, tees and other layering pieces) or if it's going to be a specialty piece.

What do I mean by that?
You can buy button down shirts, trousers and denim year round, generally in the same fit, fabric or wash. You can walk into a men's store at any time and find those pieces. Great, those are your basics in your wardrobe. But each season a brand releases a new jacket or a familiar one but in a different wash or fabric.

Those are your speciality pieces. They are typically higher in price and are trend-driven or not something you'd find everyday. A jacket would be one of those pieces.

Let's talk jackets. You can never have enough jackets. But seriously.

Wait, what?
Most great outfits have three pieces to them. A top, a bottom and a jacket.

Why buy more jackets or blazers? Do my shirt and pants not do the job?
If you look at a majority of our shoots and daily outfits, you'll likely find a third piece. And that third piece is typically a jacket. A jacket pulls an outfit together with the top or bottom. It cleans it up and finishes it off. Throw a blazer in the back of your car or carry a cardigan in your bag.

And that third piece is usually more expensive because it's special and thats where the dollars start to add up. However, those dollars were not on this piece.

Nope. About four-Chipotle-burritos' worth of dolla-dolla-bills-y'all were spent on this jacket.

"The Braydon" Jacket by Comune.

It's a nice, structured-but-soft, slim-fitting jacket with high-cut arm holes, which is tough to find when it comes to getting a jacket off the rack. I sized down and got a small, but the medium fit well also. Quite a deal for a great alternative to a blazer and a different take on a denim jacket, thus making it "special."

STYLING TIP: Throw this jacket on with a pair of dark wash denim, tailored pair of khakis or do the monochromatic look. My style is generally pretty preppy, but this was too sharp and filed under "specialty" pieces that will instantly pull my look together.

It's available at:

• Need Supply in "Stone"


• Urban Outfitters in "Stone" and "Charcoal"


• Amazon.com in "Black," "Stone" and "Charcoal."


• Dogfunk in "Black," "Stone" and "Charcoal"


• ....and just Google Shopping search the damn thing, too.

File this one under: a monochromatic look, too.

On Jeff: Coated black denim jacket (sale $32, Nordstrom) by COMUNE; handmade yellow striped bow tie ($20) by Annaruna; grey pin-stripe straight leg pant ($175) by Nonnie Threads; refurbished white leather topsiders ($30, Nordstorm Rack) by Sperry; cotton grey button-down by J.Crew.

Photograpy by Bradley Siefert