How To Thrift For Suits & Jackets Like a Pro

Hey, this is Beacon's Closet.

I'm Yang, and today we are going to spin through

the suits and jackets rack.

I'll be giving you my first impressions

about every item of clothing on this rack

so you can better understand

how to thrift for quality suits and jackets.

Let's start with this guy here.

Seems like a pretty cool, old-school, double-breasted suit

that's made in Canada, as was I,

so that's already a plus in my book.

Late '80s, probably early '90s silhouette.

It's got what's called a six by one button closures.

That means there's six buttons on the front

but only one of them actually closes and works.

Hey, future Yang here,

jumping in with a little more context,

the thing about a six by one button stance

is that because there's only one button

being buttoned at the very bottom of the jacket,

it makes everything a little longer,

a little more elegant.

It makes everything feel a little classier and more formal.

It's got this really nice houndstooth pattern.

I like that a lot.

Depending on the size of it,

people will call it puppy tooth or whatever

and so maybe that's what this is.

It's like a micro houndstooth.

Interrupting here again just to say

houndstooth actually originated in Scotland in the 1800s

and it was used mainly on hunting clothes.

The lapels are a good size

and this style is honestly like really coming back,

sort of a boxier, looser fit suit.

It was the kind of suit you'd want to like run

miles away from screaming like 10 years ago.

A really classic example of that '90s fit

that people still love is Giorgio Armani suits

from the early '90s.

For 45 bucks, that's a pretty decent suit

that you can rock on the weekends,

you can wear out to a bar,

and you know, you'll look pretty cool.

[ambient music]

I'll give you a good idea of what used to be cool

and is sort of on the way out,

which are like super slim, skinny suits.

It works on certain guys if you have the right build for it.

This is definitely a suit that, you know,

is a little out of date and a little too slim

and probably won't sort of stand the test of time.

Just based on the style, like just how slim,

like skinny these lapels are

and how tapered these pants are,

these are gonna fit you like your skinny jeans

from Warped Tour.

It's 60% wool, 40% polyester, and fully lined polyester.

So you can really feel the polyester quality of it.

Polyester is a synthetic fabric

that's usually made from gas petroleum.

It is a cheaper alternative to natural fibers

like cottons or wools and you can sort of feel it

on a suit because it'll be a little too slick.

It'll feel a little too much like your gym clothes.

It'll give the suit sort of an unnatural sheen

that you don't want that

like really looks like a cheap suit.

I would probably avoid a suit like this right now.

This is a jacket I would probably only recommend picking up

if you're going to a costume party maybe.

It's that sort of polyester fabric from the '70s.

It's got these crazy wide lapels

and this plaid like know I love a plaid blazer

on the right day, but this one is like probably not that.

It's also missing a button, which is not great.

It just doesn't really scream professional

or cool in any real way.

It's a little more right for Halloween perhaps.

[ambient music]

Okay, we got this.

This is sort of a thing that you were gonna find

on racks like this and in stores like this a lot

that kind of bugs me,

which is where this is very clearly a suit jacket.

The matching pants aren't here

and maybe that's because the person who donated this

didn't provide the pants.

Maybe the pants are on another rack over there somewhere.

I'm not really sure, but you can sort of tell

that this isn't a sport coat or a blazer.

Generally speaking, sport coats and blazers

are gonna be made of slightly different material.

You can sort of tell just from the wool

and the pinstripe of it all.

Like this is definitely cut and meant to be a suit jacket.

You know, oftentimes like sort of fall winter sport coats

are gonna be a little bit thicker

like the one that I'm wearing that's a little sweatier,

a blazer will like generally have like gold or brass buttons

and then this is just sort of quite clearly

like meant to have matching pants and it doesn't.

That's just a thing to avoid altogether

because there's no way you're really gonna wear this

with jeans or with with trousers

or anything and it'll look white, right?

We talked a little crap about this plaid jacket

but this plaid suit on the other hand

is very sick to me.

This is kitschy and retro in a good way to me.

It has a lot to do with this fabric,

which is a beautiful wool.

The great thing about wool is that it's a natural fiber.

Wool lasts so long because its fibers are very resilient.

You can wear it over and over again

and it'll take a really long time

for it to actually break down

the way that something a little bit lighter

like a cotton or polyester might.

This is a really cool detail too.

It was made it expressly for Isaac Baker and Son

in Erie Pennsylvania.

You know, back in the day,

like there were all these really cool little stores

that would have like suiting programs

and this just reads to me like in the best way possible,

like a '70s anchorman.

Big bold lapels, big bold plaid, these kind of wide-legged

almost bell bottomy trousers.

I wouldn't be surprised to see this,

you know, like on a Gucci runway.

[ambient music]

Here we have a suede jacket of sorts,

which is kind of cool.

It's kind of giving me sort of like '80s

lounge singer vibes.

It is from a brand from Italy

that I've never heard of called La Matta.

I'm sure I'm saying that wrong.

It is 100% leather and it was made in Italy.

This is a pretty cool jacket for 30 bucks

it says as is which leads me to believe

that there's probably some damage somewhere

that I'm not seeing.

I guess there's some scuffs back here,

but suede can be notoriously difficult

to clean and care for.

Suede is a type of leather

that is made with the underside of the animal skin,

which is why it's so much softer and nappier and fuzzier.

That fuzziness is beautiful

but it can lend itself to a whole host of problems

if you wear it out in the snow or the rain.

It's just really not going to hold up all that well

to the elements.

You know, if you're getting something for 30 bucks

and it's in pretty good shape,

you can kind of like wear it into the ground

and not feel too guilty about that, which is cool.

[ambient music]

This is not a bad looking Hugo Boss made in USA

sort of tweedy sport coat.

This is also like feels kinda late '90s,

maybe early 2000s to me in some ways

just based on the lapel width

and this fabric which like sort of looks like something

my dad would've worn to work in like 1998.

The fabric here is 100% virgin wool.

It's not bad.

I think this is like kind of neither here nor there

in terms of the things we've seen on the rack so far,

but perfectly decent option.

Now for something completely different. [chuckles]

We got a full on jumpsuit here,

just a cheaper one that is, yeah, made to be worn to work

and then disposed of

and not really something that I would recommend

like putting into your personal style.

Here we've got a another suit jacket in need of pants.

It says it was made in Italy.

It's a little bit rough around the edges.

It looks like it was well worn

and people have been stuffing stuff in the pocket there.

You start to see on suits as they get worn,

little threads coming, kind of coming off here and there.

Like the edges of your cuffs

are gonna get kind of dirty and worn out.

The lining will start to break,

especially sometimes like under the underarm I find,

and then anything you're using like a pocket

is probably gonna get misshapen or stretched out over time.

Kind of a cool pattern.

Unfortunately, it doesn't have pants.

[ambient music]

One more suit jacket, no pants.

Again, slightly outdated, slimmer lapel

that we're less of a fan of these days.

It's cost more than that sway jacket

and I would definitely get that sway jacket.

Cool, this is a Christian Dior blazer, 60 bucks.

Dior obviously, a very famous name in fashion circles.

You know, it's gone through different periods.

You'll find a lot of Dior stuff

for cheaper than you might expect

because those things, you know, weren't necessarily made

up to the same standard that the house is known for

and known for, again, now.

A little extra context here, in the '80s and '90s,

Dior actually licensed its name out

to a bunch of other companies

who made their men's wear and put the Dior name on it.

That doesn't mean that this is bad clothing necessarily,

it's just probably not up to the standard

you might think of when you think of Dior,

which is once again today,

one of the great and extremely cool Parisian fashion houses.

Cool kind of flaxie color, with a lot of texture to it,

you know, nice classic cut, great lapels.

This is a cool jacket for 60 bucks.

Ultimately, it's like a pretty nice,

like spring, summer weight blazer.

This is like a looser, lighter weight airier material.

It's definitely more breathable.

It is lined, but you know,

sometimes you'll see like spring summer jackets

are only half lined or no lining at all.

This is a great option

if you're going to a wedding in the springtime.

All right, this is kind of a nice little gem here.

This is like a really cool camel sport coat from Nordstrom

back in the day with the old Nordstrom house label,

which is a cool kind of retro detail.

The Nordstrom Classics for Men line kind of cool.

I'm wondering if this is old enough

that it would be real camel hair or if it's wool.

It is, it's a hundred percent camel's hair.

So camel hair really is made from the hair of a camel,

which is a very soft and luxurious fabric

and it's often collected not by shearing a camel,

but by simply picking up

and collecting the hair that's left behind

after the camel's annual shedding season.

This is really gorgeous, like this is the real deal.

Has that great tan color.

You don't often see blazers or sport coats this color.

This would look good over just like a white shirt

and a and black or navy knit tie.

This is a really good versatile option for every day.

This is tough.

There's a lot wrong here.

These lapels are way too skinny.

This fabric just like looks like, I don't know,

like if you go and went to someone's VASER pad

and this would probably be their sheets, you know,

and you're just like,

Dude, just like get like white linen, it's gonna be fine.

The buttons here are way too close together.

They're all kind of squinched up in a way

that's gonna like not make your midsection

look very flattering.

You really don't want the buttons

to be all that close together

because it's gonna leave a lot of fabric on either side

that will make you look wider.

It's got this like kind of reflective paisley,

which like, you know, just screams guy

on his fourth bachelor party in Vegas kind of thing.

I guess this was custom tailored for somebody

by Raymond Custom Tailoring.

Boy, they could have just gotten something off the rack

that would be a little bit nicer.

So that's a tough beat.

Here is a tuxedo jacket that I'm not really a fan of.

It's got this bird's eye pattern

with the satin lapels.

This isn't a particularly nice bird's eye,

but there are beautiful bird's eye suits out there.

Generally speaking, tuxedo jackets,

like you know, they're a little fancier

and so they're the ones

that are gonna have these contrast satin lapels

and oftentimes like silk or satin covered buttons.

That doesn't mean that all touch jackets

have those necessarily, but that is a hallmark of black tie.

Okay, we're still running

with a lot of these kind of slightly,

I think there's a reason that these are on this rack

that people maybe tossed these out.

This is a, again, like a slightly outdated jacket.

I think, again, maybe it was intended to be part of a suit

and the pants are gone.

Perfectly forgettable.

So let's keep moving.

This is, again, a half of a suit that's missing.

This one's from Suitsupply.

Slightly better lapels.

Again, they're slightly wider here,

but without the pants here,

you know, it's kind of a losing proposition.

[ambient music]

This is a pretty well worn parka by the brand TNA,

which I think is a spinoff off Aritzia.

A lot of the ladies in my life have,

growing up in Toronto had jackets like this.

I think this one is probably cut for women.

When I'm looking for new parka,

I want it to be warm and really handsome.

And this parka is not hitting an either category.

Looks a little too skimpy

to really protect you from the elements.

You also want something that's gonna look good

with a lot of your clothes and this sort of muddy color

is really just not hitting for me.

You can do better than this in terms of a parka

if it's that cold out, you know?

[Yang chuckles]

Okay, what do we got here?

So this is a spin by Andrew Marc on a duffle coat.

You know, the kind of coat

that Paddington bear wears for instance.

This is not a particularly cool one in my opinion.

They just are doing too much.

You know, like the duffle coat

is a really classic British style.

It emerged in the British Navy

and generations of like boarding school kids wore them

and it's cool, it's preppy,

it's got like a lot of history to it.

If you want the real deal in terms of of duffle coats,

definitely go for Gloverall.

They sort of originated the style and still do it the best

and this one is just doing way too much.

They added these zippers and all these fake leather things

that look really shiny and plasticky

and there's an extra zip collar here for some reason

and the hood zips off, like it's just wrong.

This is a leather puffer from Zara

so you kind of already know the deal here.

It's like definitely not real leather.

It definitely feels like vinyl or plasticky.

I don't even think it'll be particularly that warm.

It's like padded, but who knows with what.

Probably a good one to skip.

This is not the leather jacket you wanna be wearing

if you're gonna look cool in the leather jacket.

On the other hand, I would absolutely buy this.

This is sick, this is a great old L.L.Bean coat.

It's like sort of a field jacket, trail jacket style.

This is the kind of thing that my dad,

a dad would've worn in the '90s.

That's sort of the style I'm always looking to replicate.

L.L.Bean, great old school American brand,

makes really quality stuff.

I would guess it's from the late '80s, early '90s probably,

somewhere in that region, maybe mid '90s.

But this is made of a hundred percent nylon

so it's gonna be waterproof, it's gonna be good in the rain,

good for a hike,

good for dropping the kids off at soccer practice,

whatever the case might be.

It's got this cool sort of cinched waist, which you know,

you don't really see that much anymore.

It's got a nice like sort of three quarter length,

really cool jacket, great color.

Okay, this leather jacket,

oh, it's got a button sort of falling off.

You might think that I'm gonna sort of trash this jacket

and say that it is also

not the kind of leather jacket you want,

but honestly, like this sort of leather jacket

is really cool again,

possibly because everybody watched The Sopranos

during the pandemic.

These sort of big loose leather coats

are just kind of rad again.

If you can pull them off it,

it does take a specific kind of person

and a specific kind of look

to make this look cool and not frumpy,

but it's definitely possible

and it's like this is big and weighty

and says it's 100% leather.

So an interesting thing about that

is that if you see it say 100% leather

or genuine leather, that does mean yes, that it's leather,

but it doesn't always mean

it's necessarily the best quality leather.

For 45 bucks if you're the right person for this

and you can pull it off and make it work,

like this is a cool leather coat.

Okay, obviously I love a tweed jacket

and this one is very cool based on the cut of it.

It's probably from the '50s or the '60s.

Got these sort of slimmer kind of Mad Men-ish lapels

and these are slim lapels, I think, in a good way personally

because sort of speaks to that era

and the cut is a little bit boxier.

You heard me kind of bashing slimmer lapels earlier.

These lapels are way too skinny, outdated,

slimmer lapel, perfectly forgettable.

I think it was like those specific slimmer lapels,

which feel very like 2014, 2015 to me

and this one feels more natural.

It fits the garment and kind of makes sense

with the overall cut of this jacket.

It's genuine Harris tweed

and Harris tweed is like the best tweed in the world.

It's like well known.

It's made on the Isle of Harris in Scotland

and real Harris tweed

will have like a badge like this essentially

that sort of shows you that it was made

by the independent Harris tweed producers.

That's pretty cool.

And this is a gorgeous blue tweed, which is quite rare.

You don't often see tweeds this color

and it's got similar to mine.

It's got a herringbone pattern to it.

It's that sort of zigzaggy pattern that you see

right here in wool.

Herringbone is another extremely classic pattern,

not just in men's wear but in the world.

It actually originated way back in the Roman Empire

where it was used in buildings and in roadways.

That's how they laid down the brick.

Tweed is great because it's sturdy, you know.

It's just got this like kind of great,

rough hone quality to it can sort of stand up to anything.

It'll, you know, serve you well

as like an outer layer on a crisp fall day.

It's kind of bulletproof.

And you know, this one obviously has stood the test of time.

[ambient music]

Another kind of leather coat,

but unlike the other boxy leather jacket we saw before,

I'm not really a fan of this one.

I'm not convinced that this is real leather.

It does feel very kind of plasticky to me.

It's got this kind of weird crunch that I don't like.

Okay, so here we go.

It says genuine leather.

If you see genuine leather on a tag,

it often indicates that it's a lower quality leather

that's undergone a lot more processing.

It's made up of different composites

of sort of cheap leathers.

You really wanna make sure that your leather is full grain.

And generally if it says, you know,

the kind of hide that it is, if it's calf skin for instance,

that's like normally a good sign.

It means that it's made from a high quality

beautiful leather that will age really nicely over time.

And this is not that unfortunately.

Okay.

This is a overshirt of sorts.

This is the kind of tweed that you would normally see

on like a Chanel pants suit perhaps or skirt suit.

This is made of 100% polyester.

It's weird because it's cut like a,

kind of a lumber Jackie plaid shirt,

but then this is something

that Cher from Clueless would wear, like the fabric.

So I don't really know what it's going for

and probably good to skip this one too.

Another kinda longer leather coat.

This is fine.

Yeah, this is pretty cool.

It's like old Kenneth Cole.

I think this is probably cut

for more feminine bodies as well.

Definitely based on the floral lining, but nice leather.

It's nice and soft.

If it fits your body, if you're slim enough to pull it off,

I think it's a think it's a perfectly decent

longer leather coat.

So we've got this really cool Karl Kani jacket.

Karl Kani was sort of early streetwear purveyor in the '90s

worn by a lot of rappers.

You know, it's got a chore coat kind of cut to it

with these big patch pockets on the fronts.

So chore coats are like a work wear style.

They're generally cut pretty wide and have these big pockets

'cause they're meant to be worked in

for people who do manual labor.

And so to flip one in leather is a pretty cool move.

It's a very wearable style.

Okay, next up Kenneth Cole reaction trench.

Trench coats are always cool.

This one, not so much in my opinion.

Ideally, you want a trench coat with some real length.

You know, you want to go well past your knees

and this one's gonna kind of hit mid thigh and it's lined,

which is like maybe nice on a cold rainy day,

but ideally, you want looser cut trench

that can fit over comfortably over a suit

or over a big sweater or whatever you're wearing underneath.

And I'm not totally sure

that that's actually gonna be the case here

'cause it's cut so slim.

Here we have a massively cut leather blazer.

Leather blazers are sick.

Anthony Bourdain used to wear them all the time

and looked really cool in them every single time.

This one I'm a little torn about.

I mean, it's so big

that I'm having a hard time picturing it.

Maybe if you're like 6'6 and this fits you properly,

maybe it'll look cool.

Or if you're like very slender and small like,

and it's super oversized, that might be kind of fun

like in a talking heads kind of way,

but I don't know, it's probably not right for most people.

This is another leather coat.

It's very big.

It's padded, it's super heavy, it looks battered to hell,

which like, you know, is either a plus or a minus

in your book, like depending on your style,

and it does feel, you know, a little bit cheaper leather.

Again, it's that genuine leather

that we've told you to look out for.

So probably not the best leather jacket for the money.

All right, we got one more leather number here.

This is a double XL from Dockers.

It's what they call a cafe racer style

with this like kind of band collar here.

You know, I'm no motorcycle expert,

but it is a style of both bike and jacket.

Not the world's nicest leather jacket,

not the world's worst.

Like I think, yeah, again, on the right person,

this could look perfectly fine and cool.

All right, this is a Dolce and Gabbana

summer Blazer.

You know, Dolce and Gabbana, very fancy label.

So that's like kind of maybe a good value for 55 bucks,

it says as is, which makes me think

that there's probably some damage or stains

or something happening here

that I'm not quite seeing right away,

but I feel like it's maybe slightly purposely rumbled.

Like you could definitely steam all this out.

But you know, the thing with cotton jackets,

like this is like a light cotton summary jacket.

When you're wearing linen or cotton

or any of these lighter summer fabrics,

wrinkles are gonna happen

and either you own them or you don't, you know?

There's a lot to like about this jacket from my perspective.

First of all, the label here.

It says the territory ahead with this very '90s graphic.

It looks like the kind of thing you would get

on a like workbook in math class or like it's a cult.

I have no idea, but I'm intrigued.

And then that kind of just leads

into the rest of this jacket,

which sort of reads something Ethan Hawke would've worn

in like Before Sunrise.

It's just kind of like a little loose and Bohemian

and it's 52% linen and 48% silk.

Like I was saying, so linen jackets,

like they tend to wrinkle,

but you know that rumpled quality is part of the appeal.

This is more of a '90s cut, right?

Like if you watch, you know, TV shows from that era,

this is the kind of jacket that guys were wearing back then.

They liked things a little looser.

It's got these casual patch pockets.

This is not like a formal dressy blazer.

This is like the kind of thing you throw on over a T-shirt

and some Levi's and kind of hit the road.

Great thing to wear if you are riding the rails in Europe.

[ambient music]

All right, this is inching closer to a great trench.

It's not perfect, but it's cooler than the last one.

It's from a brand called the Gleneagles.

It's got this like sort of knockoff Burberry lining on here.

Burberry purports to have invented the trench coat,

so that's why a lot of brands

try to nod towards that heritage.

Trench coats originated in World War I

and they were designed to be long and durable

to keep soldiers warm and dry throughout trench warfare.

There are two main British brands who claim

to have invented the trench coat, Burberry and Aquascutum,

both of them are pretty great in my opinion.

It's got a really classic trench construction

in terms of the double breasted cut.

The belt back here that you can either,

you know, belt up or tie up in the front

or tie up in the back depending on how you wanna wear it.

It's got these flat pockets,

which are good for keeping things dry

and your pockets in the rain.

And again, unlike the last one, it isn't overly lined.

So you know, this is going to sit more naturally

over whatever you're wearing

underneath and not feel too tight or constricting

when you're wearing like a suit

or a big sweater underneath.

For 30 bucks, that's like pretty good value.

Okay, this is a pretty cool retro leather jacket.

It's from Gino Leathers and that already like,

sort of like, you know, calls to mind,

like all sorts of crazy discoey visions in my brain.

And it has this like fur lining

that you can unzip and take out

depending on how hot or cold it is.

And it's got these great slanted pockets

and this cool contrast lining.

And even though, yeah,

probably isn't the nicest leather in the world.

The overall look and aesthetic and style of it

is so distinctive and so cool.

Like, you know, this is like a jacket

that like requires the owner to like own a Camaro

and drive it as fast as possible.

So pretty sick, honestly.

Okay, we have another duffle coat here.

This one is not as offensive to me as the last one,

but also not perfect

and not something I'd necessarily recommend,

but it's all right.

This is fine.

You can kind of feel this flannel isn't the nicest,

it's like definitely kind of nappy

and way too many pockets on the front here.

This is an okay duffle coat.

[ambient music]

Here's our last coat on the rack.

This is a sort of military style parka from ALLSAINTS,

a British brand.

It's like aiming for the kind of cool

military fishtail parka

that like Liam Gallagher would wear on stage.

And it's unfortunately landing closer to the sort of thing

that like Jared Leto would wear on stage

with Thirty Seconds to Mars.

So there's like a Velcro patch here.

There's like kind of a faux

probably sheep skinny lining in here that'll keep you warm

that I think, again, yeah, you can button out.

Yeah, I don't know, something about this

is just not quite hitting for me.

I think maybe it's like the way it's been

sort of artificially distressed.

I think it's been washed

and treated in a way that the whole thing

is meant to look distressed.

Whereas like if were to get a cool old wax cotton jacket,

you can tell that something's been worn

by a real person over time

because it's only worn in certain areas.

Whatever wear and tear is on it,

like looks a little more natural

and less like, you know, uniform.

[ambient music]

If I were to take one thing home with me today,

I would actually probably pick this suit.

You know, of course, it'd have to be in an ideal world

where this suit fit me.

I think it's definitely way too small for me,

but it's the kind of thing that I go vintage shopping

and thrifting to look for.

It's like big crazy swings,

you know, that maybe cost a little less.

So I feel a little more confident

in trying to take that risk.

And you know, a great retro suit like this

with the big bold lapels

and the big bold plaid is definitely a risk worth taking.