No jacket required?

I know, I know: we live in a tropical country with enough year-round humidity to irrigate the saltpans of Africa so wearing a jacket to dinner isn’t only pretentious, it’s downright stupid — so they say.

 Not to mistake it for the dinner jacket, which in sartorial parlance means either a white or black tuxedo jacket; no, I speak of the less formal sport coat or blazer worn with trousers or even jeans, which men from Europe, North America and parts of Asia such as Singapore and Hong Kong wear to dinner dates. 

 When I was much younger and away at college, it was de rigueur for men to wear jackets to dinner because of the cold weather — summer included — when nightfall always brought in a cool breeze.  Sure, we were all on lean student budgets and were inseparable from our parkas but most men had that one odd jacket their mothers picked up for them at some Macy’s White Sale for such occasions. 

 It was either the trusty tweed with suede elbow patches or the standard navy blazer. There were some old reliable cords mostly in chocolate brown and the occasional gray but no matter what cut, color or cloth it appeared as, it was always present. Along with the newly-showered manboy of a date with the freshly scrubbed face and the still-moist hair, the jacket always made an appearance as some sort of symbol that the occasion was indeed out of the ordinary and therefore required that extra effort of donning said jacket, which, of course, spoke well of the manboy and upped the odds of him scoring a second date.

 After college, when the manboy turns into a full-fledged man (hopefully) and starts earning some disposable income, he upgrades to a better “date jacket,” if not the bank-breaking designer suit just yet. Still, he will wear a jacket to dinner — okay, never to a fast-food joint and definitely not to your neighborhood Mr. Fong’s but to someplace with proper linen if not candlelight and a maitre d’.

 “Pretentious,” countless people have told me whenever I broach the subject of men wearing jackets to dinner and understandably so because of our oppressive heat. But more than that, I believe it’s a cultural thing: Filipinos don’t practice it — period. We don’t raise our sons to do it, we don’t expect our dates to do it, so nobody does. But then again, I remember old black and white photos of my grandpa in a white or black dinner jacket at parties or dances and a couple of my dad as a young man as well. Whatever happened to those times?

 Among friends in Manila it is Jim Ayala, Mon Paterno and Jun del Rosario who come to mind as champions of the jacket-at-dinner school. Perfect gentlemen, these three are — jacket or no jacket. But then again, they were all schooled abroad and had worked abroad for long periods, which is how they must have picked up the practice.

 Nowadays, all — I repeat: all — restaurants in Manila, at least, are fully air-conditioned so the heat issue becomes moot. Some have argued it’s getting in and out of the car, walking to and from the date’s pickup point and in and out of the restaurant that’s enough to turn any jacketed man into a sweat mop, so why make the effort? Others say the air-conditioning is not strong enough to guarantee dry armpits all night long. So, it’s the Pinoy staple of long-sleeved shirts and trousers that a girl must gaze at all evening, but better that than the shirt-and-tie “get-up” (heavens!) that some clueless dudes opt for. There should be legislation against that — hello!

 It is acknowledged that since the past decade men have become more compliant with dress codes at events and kudos to them for that but what we speak of is that private, personal event such as an intimate dinner à deux where a man takes it upon himself to wear a jacket “just because.”

 Again, call it pretentious but there is something romantic in an Old World sort of way about men who wear jackets to dinner. It adds a little something special to even a non-occasion that commits it instantly to memory. There’s something dreamy about a man in a jacket who gets you at the door and walks you to the car and what better way to start an evening. Really, with so many ugly things happening in the world, we do need an occasional Friday night to escape harsh reality for a few solid hours.

 Lately, men in jackets have been on my watch list because I have been traveling for several weeks now and therefore a de facto restaurant patron. From sunny Greece, Italy and Spain to the beaches of the South of France, men go to dinner in jackets in spite of the heat — mostly in linen, although there was this one gentleman in Ma Petite Maison in Nice who wore a silk one. He cut such a smart figure he could have put George Clooney to shame — and no, he wasn’t gay, if that’s what you’re thinking because he was all loved-up by his gorgeous brunette date. In Paris, where the seasons seem to be in a mad tangle, what with 13-degree temperatures and thunder storms, men dress more formally — regulation dark suits for dinner.

 But there was this one time at La Tupina in Bordeaux when, at the next table, two handsome couples were engrossed both with dinner and their animated conversation.  The two ladies faced each other across the table and were closest to me. Their dates or spouses were on the far end. They were clearly of comfortable means because they were well spoken and impeccably mannered. This supposition was further strengthened by their manner of dress, including understated accessories of small, lustrous pearls, wrist watches of makes since the time of Napoleon Bonaparte and well-worn Hermes handbags that have clearly served them well through the years (if not re-glazed and re-conditioned and passed down from a previous generation).

 From where I sat it appeared as though both their escorts had dinner jackets on but as the one on the right excused himself to go to the men’s room, I saw that he wasn’t wearing one and instead was wearing a powder-blue button-down shirt with a baby pink pullover draped over his shoulders and knotted loosely across his chest — that Waspy, Boston-Brahman cliché.

 I don’t know why but I have a quarrel with this draped-around-the-shoulders-sweater look.  Every time I see someone — male or female — with this outfit, I feel like asking, “When the heck are you going to put that sweater on?” “Use it or lose it” is my advice.

 While I’m on this admittedly absurd rant, may I please add that the only thing worse than this is when a man does bother to wear a jacket to dinner only to take it off and drape it across his chair back before he sits down. Why bother? 

 While deliberating on whether to go out to dinner with a jacket, please consider all points: continental restaurant that serves moderately-flavored dishes, not ethnic restaurant with spicy food; ample air conditioning; level of formality of establishment; rating of your date and whether she’s worth the effort or not; overall ambience of venue; income tax bracket of clientele; etc. All things considered, it you do decide to wear a jacket to dinner, commit to actually wearing it.

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Thank you for your letters.  You may reach me at cecilelilles@yahoo.com.