So when this morning found me hunched over my trusty Iphone (building repairs having incapacitated FIOS), I was happy but suspicious to see that many iterations of the Schoolboy Blazer have returned to the J.Crew website, under the category Jackets and Blazers. I looked at each. Here is my report.
The velvet: "updated with a slightly shrunken and chicer (sic) fit".
Houndstooth: also "features" this fit. Busy laundress.
Navy: has a "slightly shrunken, superchic fit." I think a light is beginning to dawn.
Wool flannel: back to "posh, slightly shrunken."
All of the models are standing slightly (couldn't resist) off-kilter, so you can't see what the shrinkage looks like when the model stands up straight, tries to button more than one button,and tries to put her arms down.
So what I'm wondering is, maybe it's not that the talented designers shrunk the fit, it's that the talented cutters shrunk the marker. This question comes up a lot when I consider awkward sizing, which in my case is often, and I thought I'd google the term in order to provide one or two helpful explanatory links. Sadly, iPhone google is not as comprehensive as big computer google, and this is the only one I found: shrinking the marker
So even though I've longed for the return of velvet jackets and their friends and relations, I'm waiting for reports on the fit, quality and comfort from real-life purchasers. Could this be the origin of Skinny Arm Syndrome? What do you think? Chime in!
I'm not in love with the schoolboy cut, as I find it to be too short/boxy in the torso and a smidge tight and awkward in the shoulders (and I'm narrow-shouldered). I think it's a lot cheaper for JC to forgo the tailoring that their older jackets used to have and instruct the Copywriter from Space to pass it off as a trendy shape. Then again, I feel that way about almost everything there lately. If the quality and construction had always been like this, I wouldn't know any better but to watch their decline - especially on the classic pieces - is kind of painful.
ReplyDeleteHa! At least we are not dealing with shrunken slouchy borrowed-from-the-boys fit. I like these jackets for work and have several. Just compared the 2009 navy one with the 2011 chambray which is a size smaller; the shoulder and chest are exactly the same and the newer one is an 1" shorter. So we have shrunken size inflation...
ReplyDeleteHilarious wellfedfred!
ReplyDeleteBusy laundress indeed.
haha wff, love your take on schoolboy situation. Personally, I don't care for the cut, I have similar issues like silver_lining, too boxy, too short and when it fits me in chest the shoudlers are too wide. I liked the fit of summer linen crisp jacket much more. I love fit of Theory blazers. $$$ of course but classic, I have dark charcoal pinstripe from almost 10 years ago that somehow is just as fashionable now like it was then.
ReplyDeletesilverlining and ajc, agree the Schoolboy always was a particular cut, and it also wasn't for me, just as I had to lay off the RL sales when all his cute jackets suddenly broke out in half-peplums over the rear. But the distortion of sizes, as Lane points out, is concerning. Proportionate vanity sizing is at least predictable; something that fits your shoulders and at the back but won't button at the front or the neck should be called an Irregular and priced as such.
ReplyDeleteDani, intergalactic marketing has a lot to answer for!
I will be able to report at the end of next week about the possible return of the SAS. Hopefully I will have good news. :)
ReplyDeleteHi, Rose, waiting to hear...
ReplyDeleteAll my Schoolboys have fit great with the exception of the Canvas one done earlier this summer. It's like shrunken shrunken. Not just slightly shrunken. Boooo.
ReplyDeleteHi, Elaine, given all the reported size variations here and elsewhere, wondering whether "shrunken" is one of those conditions that doesn't go with "slightly"?
ReplyDelete