Let me be the first to say that I am the last to the fleece vest party. My wife has been nudging me for years to get one or two, but I have resisted. Fleece vests are a sort of uniform, and I don’t consider myself a member of either army that wears them.
Those of the Silicon Valley venture capitalist crowd were among the first to make Patagonia-brand, zip-front, synthetic-fiber vests a standard part of the modern wardrobe. They were a natural for the hypercasual, Left Coast business scene, combining high-tech fabrics and a comfortably unconstructed shapelessness.
What happened next seemed less a natural fit: The fleece vest replaced the navy blazer as the top layer in the business casual uniform of East Coast financiers. This was odd enough when casual dress was still primarily a Friday phenomenon. But in what I believe has been a bid to look like the new-money techies, the old-school finance world has made every day Casual Friday. (Their adoption of the fleece vest has been lucrative for Patagonia but also awkward: The company’s stakeholders have been ambivalent about doing business with bankers.)
Where does that leave those of us who are neither techie venture capitalists nor Wall Street fintech bros? Out in the cold — without a fleece vest. That is, until your wife just goes out and buys one for you.
I humored her by putting it on. I didn’t want to take it off.
Don’t get me wrong: I have long had and enjoyed wearing vests. I like the formality of a three-piece suit. I have a variety of vest sweaters (which under a tweed jacket says either “lord of the manor” or “angry young man” — take your pick). I even have a couple of lapelled waistcoats, which I am not actually foppish enough to wear.
Nor is this the first vest fad I’ve lived through. Lisa Birnbach’s The Official Preppy Handbook joked that the only man-made fabric a proper prep would ever wear was the shell of an L.L. Bean down vest. Those vests had their breakout moment in the early to mid-’80s, when wearing down vests started as part of the general preppy moment. But by the middle of the decade, they had become an essential part of the suburban, high school rock ‘n’ roller costume. The ’80s get-up that Michael J. Fox wears at the beginning of Back to the Future features faded jeans and a decidedly unpreppy, acid-washed jean jacket topped with an orange down vest. Transported to the ’50s, the vest becomes a running gag as people assume he’s some sort of sailor, mistaking his vest for a Mae West.
Back in November, I predicted in this column that the days of the skinny suit were numbered. Evidence continues to accumulate that it was one of my rare predictions to prove true. This month, Esquire ran an article titled “The most elegant way to embrace baggier pants? Hike ’em up.” It made the case not only for some drape and space in trousers but for wearing them well above the waist.
What does that have to do with fleece vests? Plenty. I’ve suspected that the adoption of sleeveless fleeces, with their maximal comfort, has been a commonsense reaction to the skinny suit, which is about as livable and roomy as a fully inflated blood pressure cuff. Could the end of the skinny suit spell the end of the fleece vest as professional work wear? Will the men of the New York finance world be ready to reassert their status as impeccably tailored masters of the universe once they can wear a suit and breathe at the same time?
While waiting for the answer, I will continue to wear fleece vests in my chilly basement office. The concrete walls of the foundation may radiate cold, but zipped up in my fleece, I am impervious to it. Still, the fleece vest is as far as I am willing to go in wearing anything popular with techies. Let me bind myself, like Odysseus to the mast, by making a public promise: Unless I am running in the rain, you will not find me wearing a hoodie. The madness must stop somewhere.
Eric Felten is the James Beard Award-winning author of How’s Your Drink?
