How To Style & Combine An Overcoat

Basically, you just put on your overcoat, and you go, right?

Not quite! An overcoat is an integral part of a classic gentleman’s wardrobe, but it requires a little bit of thought about your outfit and the event you’re going to go to, as well as the temperature outside, to come up with an outfit that’s both functional and stylish.

How To Choose An Overcoat For Your Outfit

As a core principle, it should ideally contrast other elements in your wardrobe.

• If you have lots of dark elements in your wardrobe: If you own darker gloves, hats or pants, I suggest going with a light overcoat. Vice versa, if you have lighter accessories and pants, a dark overcoat is better because you always want it to contrast.
• If you have lots of solids in your wardrobe: You can either go with a solid overcoat or with a patterned overcoat. If you go for a solid, I suggest going with an interesting texture, maybe a tweed, maybe a bold weave in a solid color because that makes just all the more useful because you can combine it with different shades of colors, but also more interesting and it provides a certain amount of contrast from your otherwise solid pants.
• An overcoat should suit the rest of the formality of your wardrobe. So if you like to go with more casual slacks, maybe go with a shorter overcoat in more brown tones. On the other hand, if you go to an office and you wear business suits every day, maybe a darker coat with grey elements, blues, or blacks, are better for you.

Overcoat Details To Watch Out For

• Casual: Things like patch pockets, notch lapels or toggle closures as you can find in duffle coats are all casual items.
• Formal: Peak lapels on a double-breasted coat, jetted pockets or flap pockets, an elegant back belt, those are all things more associated with formal garments.

Guide To Styling Different Overcoat Colors

Navy Overcoats

A navy overcoat is perfect as a first overcoat in your collection because you can wear it with formal outfits. You can wear it in the evening, as well as informal outfits if you choose the right texture of the fabric.

For example, here you can see me wearing a double-breasted navy overcoat that is made of a hundred percent boiled wool. As such, it’s denser. It has this wonderful knobby texture which is just more interesting than if it was a plain weave. It comes with a belt, so it makes it a little less formal and more casual so I can wear it with a broader range of outfits, and it’s double-breasted which means I get two layers of fabric that keep me warm.

I combined it with brown corduroys that provide some of contrast just like the tan shoes. My cashmere scarf in burnt orange and gray herringbone pattern from Fort Belvedere is also contrasting even though it’s not a bright and loud color. Rather than going with boring black gloves, I went with a petrol blue pair from Fort Belvedere which is lined with cashmere. I could have also opted for a gray pair which would look likewise dapper, and it would have picked up the color in my scarf. That way, you tie in the entire outfit together. 

Overall, I could have topped it off with a hat, either a navy one or even a brown one that would go with my pants but it would have created a nice contrast with interesting visual points such as my scarf, my gloves, and my overcoat. Everything works together, but the individual items stand out stylishly.

Tan Overcoats

If you don’t wear suits to the office, a great first overcoat would be one in a solid tan color. Regarding colors, they go with any winter color and in general, with almost any color out there. For example, here you can see me wearing a British warm overcoat which is a very heavy wool fleece coat.

It has brown contrasting leather buttons, it has epaulets, peak lapels, and everything is designed to keep you very warm at the same time stylish.

As you can see, I’m pairing it with a brown fedora hat, as well as cognac-colored cashmere-lined leather gloves from Fort Belvedere. The scarf is likewise from Fort Belvedere and is made out of a blend of silk and wool which makes it softer than just plain wool, and it’s in green and red which is different than the hat, but at the same time, it’s a winter color, so it all works together.

Alternatively, you can opt for a more formal tan coat such as this military-inspired overcoat; it has an Ulster collar, it has gold buttons, epaulets and it’s cut more like a body coat such as a morning coat or an evening tailcoat, you can see that by the seams in the back. It also has a half belt in the back which is quite decorative, yet it’s not as informal as a full belt. It also has interesting details such as a flap chest pockets and angled flap front side pockets.

As you can see, I paired it with dark brown contrasting corduroy pants, brown shoes, as well as a burnt orange and grey scarf and chamois yellow HydroPeccary gloves from Fort Belvedere. It’s just a very elegant color. Yes, it’s bold but with the tan, it works quite well, and the gloves are perfect for winter because they are lined with cashmere, and they don’t get wet because they have this treatment that is water repellent. So no matter if you have to scratch the ice of your car or shovel the snow, these gloves are great. I topped it all off with a brown fedora hat to provide somewhat of a contrast.

Herringbone Overcoats

Some of the most popular ones out there are herringbone overcoats. Herringbone is a very classic menswear pattern. It’s timeless, but for overcoats, you want to make sure that it is over-scaled and large, unlike with suits or sport coats where it can be smaller. The Donegal tweed, which means it has a rougher texture made out of a hundred percent wool with contrasting colored flecks.

Here you see a brown herringbone Donegal tweed overcoat, but it has flecks in blue, green, yellow, pink, and orange. It just lightens the entire outfit. It also means it’s very easy to combine with any kind of other colors in your accessories as well as your pants because it’s already part of the overcoat and so it ties everything together.

For example, the yellow flecks are picked up by the chamois yellow gloves from Fort Belvedere. The blue flecks are picked up by my blue and gray scarf. The brown tones are picked up by my brown and gray velour fedora. Overall, the overcoat has quite some interesting details; it has some cuffs, it has a seam on the outside of the sleeve which is also very dapper and very classic. It has a back belt, patch pockets, it’s double-breasted, but it also has peak lapels to make it a little more formal.

Of course, you can also go with something a little more subdued such as the overcoat below. It has an even larger scale herringbone pattern, but the flecks are more like tan, yellow, orange, and brown and are therefore more subdued. Because of that, I could have worn them with brown or tan gloves.

Personally, I chose to go with a burgundy glove because it’s a touchscreen glove and it’s exactly what you want when it’s really cold outside, so you don’t have to take them off when you want to check something on your phone. Obviously, the belt on the coat makes it a little more casual, and the mustard color and grey herringbone cashmere scarf from Fort Belvedere pick up the yellow flecks in the coat.

Overall, the scarf is contrasting, but it’s tied together by those individual flecks. That’s why this combination works so well. The same is true for the hat. It has combinations of black and brown which you can find in the overcoat as well as in the pants and the shoes. Because of that, it’s a very harmonious outfit that provides lots of contrast, but it’s very pleasing to the eye and the viewer.

Gray Or Charcoal Overcoats

If you’re more at home in a traditional white-collar environment, you want to invest in an overcoat that’s either gray or charcoal or something that combines all those colors. For example, the overcoat I’m wearing consists of a really nice wool fabric with an interesting weave that contains tones of grey, charcoal, black and blue. Because of that, you can wear this overcoat with any business suit whether it’s light grey or charcoal. Black would even work, as well as navy or blue, and it’s just fantastic to have just one overcoat that works with every kind of suit you have.

To make it visually more appealing, a contrast velvet collar in black was added which goes really well with the overall Paletot style which is double-breasted in this case. It’s very easy to combine, and in this case, I chose a red and blue pattern wool-silk scarf from Fort Belvedere with petrol blue gloves. The hat is likewise dark and picks up colors of the overcoats, and so are the boots. Overall, if I had to get just one business overcoat, it would be this one simply because of the versatility of the fabric.

Bolder Colored Overcoats

First of all, let me say I don’t think it’s a wise idea to invest in a really bold overcoat in yellow, red, or maybe green early on because it’s just a very narrow field where you can wear it, and the cost per wear will be quite high. It’s also quite a statement piece, and because of that, I think it’s only suited to someone who really knows what they’re doing and who has an advance closet where all the basics are already covered.

That being said, if you end up with a bold overcoat such as a green duffle coat, make sure to tone down the rest of your outfit. For example, my scarf has subtle brown tones. Same with my cognac gloves which are likewise not loud and bold but very classic. They work well with my dark brown pants as well as my boots.

How to Create Different Looks With Your Overcoat

Pay Close Attention To Your Accessories

Overcoats are not cheap, and most men have just one or two. To not keep it boring and to create different looks, I suggest that you really pay attention to your accessories.

Consider Beautiful Boutonnieres

First of all, if your lapel is wide enough and it features a buttonhole you may want to consider a boutonniere. During the winter season, a real boutonniere is hard to find, and because of that, we created silk flowers from Fort Belvedere which you can find in our shop here.

Typically during the winter season, I don’t wear them on my jackets because they would be squished by my overcoat. So you wear them in your overcoat, and when you hang them up, you can exchange them, put them on your suit, wear them around, and then transfer them again when you go back home. That way you’re stylish in your suit, in your overcoat, you don’t squish the flower, and everything is dapper.

Stand Out In Scarves

When it comes to scarves, I suggest not to wear solid scarves with solid overcoats. Always try to go with some other pattern whether it’s a stripe, a classic herringbone or some other printed patterns. If you have a patterned overcoat, you can also wear a patterned scarf just make sure the scales are different. For example, with a bolder overcoat, you can get a finer pattern in your scarf and vice versa.

Opt For Elegant Hats

When it comes to hats, bear in mind that an overcoat is a traditional classic garment that’s meant to make you look elegant. Because of that, you should go with more formal choices. So skip the baseball hat or self-knitted hats and opt for a stylish Fedora with your business overcoat maybe something like a flat cap or a newsboy cap for your more casual overcoats and that will just create an overall look that is very debonair.

Go For Colored Gloves

Just like with scarves, when it comes to your gloves, you want something that’s contrasting. I’ve always been a big opponent of black gloves because not only do they look boring but they also often like the desired contrast, and it’s not something an elegant gentleman would have worn a hundred years ago. Instead, stylish men back then and today would wear different colors such as grey which is much better than black because it’s likewise formal but you can wear it with the blue suit, you can wear it with a charcoal suit, and it will always contrast.

If you live in a warmer climate, you can also go with unlined gloves or even driving gloves for regular wear because they keep your fingers warm without making you overheat.

Outfit Rundown

I’m combining my light to medium weight overcoat with dark green driving gloves which are unlined, and a flat cap that picks up those green colors. My scarf is a black watch tartan scarf. It’s a very classic tartan made of black, navy, and green and so it picks up the green tones in my gloves and in my hat. The scarf I’m wearing is called a black watch tartan and it’s a very traditional well-known tartan consisting of dark green, blue and black.

The slacks I’m wearing are part of a brown pin dot suit. They are not too heavy and so I’m wearing them with a pair of tan boots which contrast the pants and work quite well with the overcoat. They’re double soled but just leather-lined because it’s a pair of boots for not very cold climates.

 What do you think elevates the overall look of an overcoat? Drop a comment below!