The Season of the Nehru jacket
Velvet is often the last fabric on people's minds this time of year because it has a reputation for being a warm heavy fabric better suited to the winter months. But what if we told you that was a lie, a cognitive bias that your brain is deceiving you with? In fact, our velvet Nehru jackets are not in the slightest bit heavy, and barring the UAE in the height of summer, you will find them extremely comfortable on warm summer nights, principally because the velvet pile is constructed from lightweight cotton. There is no sweat-inducing structure or padding, just a light lining to complement the Nehru jacket's undeniably polished aesthetic.
When it comes to a formal evening occasion, one's options tend to be quite simple depending on the type of event. For an invitation to a hosted dinner with a good number of guests, a smoking jacket or velvet dinner jacket is always a great option, being both sartorial and extravagant. For even more formal occasions, the classic dinner jacket is typically the best choice, while events with a touch of glamour can be great opportunities for Favourbrook's more avant garde dinner jackets. But at the more casual end of the spectrum, the decision is often a little more difficult. One doesn't want to appear over-dressed on the one hand, but being the least smart person at a party is not an accolade you want either.
This conundrum can be skilfully navigated with a garment that is in our humble opinion, woefully underused and underrated - the Nehru jacket. At Favourbrook, we have created a number of velvet Nehru jackets which we think make for excellent eveningwear options when the dress code is that tricky in-between. The omission of classic shawl or peak lapels certainly gives the Nehru jacket a less formal appeal, but it is undoubtedly still a smart jacket. What's more, we created them in a variety of autumnal tones such as rust, burgundy and olive green to give them a little more personality and flamboyance.
Burgundy Velvet Cotton |
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Racing Green Velvet |
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The Nehru is a variation of the Jodhpuri which is in itself an evolution from the Angarkha, a type of three-quarter length wrap commonly worn in India. The jacket of course gets its name from Jawaharlal Nehru, the country's first independent Prime Minister, but it's something of a red herring. Nehru the man never wore Nehru the jacket. He always favoured the longer and more traditional version called an 'achkan'. Ostensibly the same other than the length, Western culture preferred the short version and so pinned the style on Nehru. The name stuck.The jacket began to be marketed as the Nehru jacket in Europe and America in the mid 1960s, with its popularity catalysed by the likes of the Beatles who took to wearing it during their respective 'looking East' period.
Back to today, we think it's a marvellous garment and a fantastic option for evenings when smart and casual lines are blurred. It feels dressed up, but can easily be dressed down with a pair of jeans. Worn with a crisp white shirt, it becomes formal, but add a silk neckerchief and it changes once again into something you could wear during the day. If you've never tried on a Nehru jacket, we'd thoroughly recommend you drop into our Pall Mall store and try one on. You might just find it becomes your favourite jacket of all.