The Silentist

Spring-summer military outerwear

I’ve been looking for some outerwear for this spring and summer, but didn’t feel like throwing down lots of cash for these items. I typically wear sport coats or blazers most days and I’ve already got some overcoats (tan mac-style and navy trench-style coats) to wear over those more “dressy” items. 

But as far as going casual, I didn’t really have anything to pull on over a sweater or oxford shirt. I’d been looking for a while, and there’s some great stuff out there, but I settled on a trip to the local army surplus store to get what I needed.

The first jacket is a cotton rip-stop poplin tropical coat. I guess it’s originally meant for tropical climates, which will work just fine for summer when I need a light windbreaker. The jacket’s a bit longer (I got a size “small-long”) and has two sets of pockets on the outside and a button front. It’ll probably hold up to a light rain, but nothing heavy.

This jacket came in other colors (tan, camo, navy/black), but none of them had slant top pockets and the arms were much wider.  What drew me to this jacket over others was the lack of epaulets on the shoulders.

I wore this jacket twice over the weekend. On Saturday night, I wore it with a white OCBD, raw silk tie, brown tweed vest, navy chinos and boat shoes.

For running around on errands on Sunday, pink OCBD, navy linen tie, khaki chinos and sand suede desert boots.

The second jacket I got was a raincoat. The exterior is rayon, the interior is rubber and the jacket claims it’s “100% waterproof.” I don’t believe it’s military surplus since it’s actually made in Korea, but it feels up to the job. The armpits have ventilation holes and has two exterior flap pockets and a zip front.

This jacket is sized “medium, 38-40,” which seemed about right. It’s not trendy slim at all, but it’s got room for layering underneath and snaps on the cuffs to narrow or widen them.

The hood is a simple drawstring. Nothing amazing, but I’m fairly confident it’ll keep me dry. My only gripe is that it doesn’t have an interior pocket at all for a phone. I wonder if I can find a way to attach one on the inside somehow?

Together for both jackets, I paid $60 with tax and that’s about half what you’d pay for one of either type of jacket brand new from companies such as Penfield, Norse Projects, etc. Good enough for me.

I’m not one to typically wear “military-inspired casualwear,” but the price and functionality of each of these was attractive to me.

If you’re in Chicago, then you can check out Army-Navy Surplus, which is where I picked these up. For those of you not in the Chicago area, they also have a webstore that’s got a rather large selection.