You've seen them. How could you NOT see them? Sportcoats and blazers that holler at you from across the lawn or the dance floor.  Come On! We're having a good time!

Sure, you may prefer to be subdued. You may go for the tactile charm of velvet or suede, or the subtlety of  Really Nice Flannel. You may own more cashmere fiber than several hairy goats.  But once you are two feet away, all of that is wasted.  Any cameraman will tell you. You Need Something Visual.  Now and then, you need a cocktail coat.

From the swinging Vegas rat pack to the  whisky-soaked coast (just about any coast- they all get pretty wet )  the guys who are always having a good time are the ones in brightly colored sport jackets. Let's see, there is your basic Red Blazer, your Madras Jacket, your Patch Madras Jacket, your Nantucket Red Blazer, your Lilly Pulitzer Wild Print Jacket, your Ralph Tapestry Sport Coat,  your J. Crew Critter Jacket, and that's really just the Prep Division. Don't forget the Striped Cricket Blazer, the Sequinned Jacket, the Gold Lame' Dinner Jacket and the Tartan Dinner Jacket.  Believe me, if you wear it, nobody else is going to forget it.

Which, oddly enough is beside  the point. A man in a jacket like that becomes That Guy In The Jacket and, somehow, it can be a mask. People see the jacket, but they may or may not see HIM.  Just as many performers are very introverted, using the stage more as armor than as a bridge, Mr. Cocktail Coat is actually Alone With Himself.

Right. That's why he is leading the conga line,  doing body shots and dancing  with everybody else's wife.  He looks wild before he's had his first drink. He has Come Prepared to Have Fun.

And he's ready to share it with you, because, lets face it, unless he stands in front of a mirror all night, the guy in the wild jacket is actually the one who sees it the least of all. This is a coat for a doer, not a wallflower. And, maybe, just maybe, this is a coat for a guy who needs that little bump to release the fun within himself. Could that guy be you? Nobody will know once you have it on.

How do you find these coats? Searching for brands or designer names helps. Mrs. Pulitzer doesn't really do subdued.  If you want a blazer in your bright school color (Any Tennesee or Clemson fans out there?) then try looking for Orange, or Aqua or whatever it might be. Ever see anything calm described as Lime Green? Chances are, if it has PAISLEY in the title, it is going to be pretty strong. J. Crew has made the term "Critter" almost generic for their allover embroidered motifs, but come to that, "embroidered" is not a bad search term either. Even if you have to wade through a few quietly tasteful ones, chances are you will find Something Wild among the madras jackets.  I have had good luck searching for velvet in blazers and sportcoats, including my beloved Dalmation coat.  You tend to be the only guy in one of those, let me tell you.  After a while, certain sellers will show up again and again. You might ask them to advise you if something good is coming in your size, or you might mark them as a "favorite seller". Or you might just hunt obsessively like the rest of us do.

At the risk of sounding like a credit card ad,  a jacket like this is  worth a lot more than its financial cost. A jacket like this is  worth its weight in  Fake Fur. If nothing else, you can actually be more sober than everybody else, because the jacket will add a couple of points to your fun quotient right off the bat. And there are times when that slight edge of sobriety is a very good thing indeed..   As always, your actual results may vary, but I don't think you will be disappointed.

If you have enjoyed this guide, please give me a "yes" vote for helpfulness and be sure to see my other guides. And, as always, let's be careful out there.  WT