The velvet blazer as the third option
Why a single dark green velvet blazer has been, for three years, the most useful piece of evening wear I own.
I have a dark green velvet blazer that I bought three years ago at a vintage shop in the Marais. It is single-breasted, mid-thigh length, with the slightly worn nap that velvet acquires after a decade or so of wear. The original owner, I would guess, was a man in his fifties with a slightly artistic profession. The blazer came to me having already had a life.
It has, in the three years I have owned it, become the third option in my wardrobe for every evening situation. The first option is usually a black silk dress. The second is usually a tailored trouser-and-blouse combination. The third — and increasingly the most reliable — is the velvet blazer over almost anything that is otherwise wearable.
What the blazer does
It transforms. A pair of jeans and a plain cream silk camisole, on its own, is a daytime outfit. The same combination with the velvet blazer over it is suddenly dinner. A simple black trouser and a thin sweater, on its own, is what I wear to the office. The same combination with the velvet blazer is suddenly evening.
The blazer does this because velvet, as a fabric, reads as evening. The deep pile catches light differently from any flat fabric. The colour reads as richer than the same colour in a non-pile weave. The whole garment carries, on its own, the visual weight of intentional dressing.
Why dark green specifically
Because dark green works with the small palette I described in another piece — it sits comfortably with navy, with cream, with camel. A black velvet blazer would have been the obvious choice but would have been more restricted in what it sat against. A dark green blazer goes with almost any non-pattern bottom and any neutral top.
Dark green also has a kind of slightly old-fashioned formality that pure black does not. The blazer is dressy without being formal. It reads as 'this is an evening I have thought about' rather than 'this is a formal event.' The distinction is the one I most often want.
On the vintage point
The blazer is forty years old. The construction is from an era when men's blazers were made to last. The fabric has the worn quality that new velvet cannot fake. The whole piece carries, in its small imperfections, the kind of authenticity that money cannot quite buy.
Vintage is, I think, the right approach for a piece like this. A new velvet blazer would have cost considerably more and would have looked, for the first few years of its life, slightly too perfect. The vintage blazer was a hundred and forty euros and looked exactly right the first day I wore it.
If you have been wanting a third option for evenings and have not found it, consider velvet. A blazer or a jacket in a colour that fits your palette, ideally vintage. The piece does a disproportionate amount of work for a single garment, and the work continues for years.