I'll trade you some of my fat man.

I am not a big fan, I had one once though, in my extreme youth. I particularly don't like the space age ones being flogged by Harry Stedman at the moment, I am sure they're excellent quality and all that, but I don't think they suit a bald, intellectual looking bespectacled man in his early to mid-40s.

Last edited by Yuca (2020-05-03 18:27:22)

Last edited by farrago (2020-05-14 19:36:45)

If you can pull it off then go for it. If it didn't have the writing I'd want one myself. (No leather sleeves as far as I can see.)

Last edited by Yuca (2020-05-15 09:00:51)

Never saw this thread before it’s recent revival.
I quite like the look of varsity jackets but never enough to get one. As a teen in England cheap copy versions showed up for a minute in high street shops but we were so tribal back then nobody really knew how to wear them as we didn’t know the provenance so they didn’t catch on in the way that Harringtons did. I think we called them ‘baseball jackets’ or ‘surfer jackets’ and us Mods were wary of a greaser connection.
A few years later some of the kids on the ‘alternative’ scene had a brief flirtation with the psychobilly trend and would go searching through the racks of ‘Flip’ in Newcastle or London to snag genuine imported vintage versions from the fifties and sixties.
I can see now why the leather sleeves version looks a bit high school / Richie Cunningham but you could scrape a few cool point connections if you reference David Soul in Starsky and Hutch as he had a black one with white sleeves. No letters IIRC. Also when Terence Trent D’Arby peaked with his first album he wore a custom made one - black with black leather sleeves with a ‘TTD’ patch in place of a varsity letter, along with an oversized cocked black newsboy cap. 
The whole concept of ‘lettering’ was (and probably still is) completely alien to Brits. The scene at the end of ‘Grease’ when the T-Birds take the piss out of Danny in his letter cardigan and him saying he “lettered† in Track was completely lost on most of us kids back then. 
A few years ago there was a series of TV commercials with Rob Lowe advertising cable or dish TV or something, in each one he’d play two different versions of himself, one ‘real’ and one in a character / caricature, highlighting the advantages of dish over cable. One was:
- Hi, I’m Rob Lowe
- And I’m “peaked in High School† Rob Lowe
and of course he was dressed up with a mullet and varsity letter jacket, underscoring the ‘teenagery’ comments above.
The silhouette is very close to that of an MA-1, a monkey jacket, or similar bomber style blousons which are a safer bet for those of us of a certain vintage I reckon, unless you’re going for the more subdued versions in this thread.

Last edited by Rod (2020-05-18 01:17:05)

I'm the wrong side of 35 and wear my Golden Bear varsity on occasion. It's just a nice casual Autumn jacket for me.

I like the Aero as I want a zip suede bomber that looks a bit smarter, they don't have pictures of all of the other colours they offer though which is annoying. I also read they use a lesser suede than they previously did... I'm think about one for after Summer still.