The Smoking Jacket: Evening Ritual Turned Style Statement

The smoking jacket emerged in the 1850s to protect evening clothes from tobacco smoke. Men would retire to the smoking room, don a loose quilted or velvet jacket absorbing cigar smoke. It was typically silk, velvet, or brocade with shawl collar, frog closures, and sash belt.

Its golden age coincided with the Edwardian era of country house weekends. A gentleman's wardrobe included not only tailcoat and dinner jacket but dedicated smoking jacket, dressing gown, and smoking cap. Turnbull & Asser and Henry Poole produced sumptuous examples.

Hugh Hefner's velvet smoking jacket became one of the twentieth century's most recognisable style signatures. His association imbued the garment with connotations of louche sophistication and unapologetic hedonism that it retains today.

The modern version features cotton or silk velvet, shawl collar faced in satin, satin-covered buttons or frogs, and either sash belt or none. Cut like a dinner jacket but with softer construction, reflecting indoor origins (https://www.turnbullandasser.com).

Velvet is the whole question. Silk velvet drapes beautifully and crushes permanently, which is why nearly every wearable jacket is cut in cotton velvet, heavier and with enough body to hold the roll of a shawl collar; bunches from Holland & Sherry and Dormeuil carry it in jacketing weights. Velvet also has a nap, so every panel must be cut running the same way. Hold a sleeve against the body under a lamp, and if one reads lighter than the other the cloth was laid badly and no pressing will correct it.

Wearing one requires confidence and context. At a formal dinner party, burgundy or midnight blue velvet with dress shirt and bow tie offers a distinctive dinner jacket alternative. At home, it pairs with a fine cotton shirt and silk cravat for hosting evenings.

Black velvet is most formal and safest. Burgundy or forest green conveys rakish character. Brocade patterns push toward extravagance best reserved for private entertaining or themed events where maximalism is welcome.

Favourbrook, in Piccadilly Arcade, has built much of its business on velvet jackets and waistcoats, and New & Lingwood sells them alongside the velvet Albert slipper that traditionally accompanies one; Bowhill & Elliott of Norwich, making slippers since 1874, still hand-embroiders monograms onto them. Ready-to-wear velvet jackets from an Italian maker start around £700, and a Jermyn Street commission runs several times that, with the difference sitting mostly in the collar roll and the shoulder.

Velvet is never pressed flat. Tailors use a needle board, a bed of fine wires that lets the pile sink while the reverse of the cloth is pressed, and without one an iron leaves permanent shine. At home, steam from the reverse or hang the jacket in a bathroom, brush the pile in a single direction with a soft velvet brush, and air it overnight after an evening out, since it still absorbs smoke and cooking exactly as it was designed to.

The smoking jacket survives not because men need to protect dinner clothes from tobacco but because it offers formality married with comfort. For the man who entertains or seeks a distinctive evening layer, a velvet smoking jacket pays dividends in style and conversation.