The Minimalist Men’s Outerwear Collection (3-4 Coats)
If you want a well-rounded but minimal outerwear collection, this guide is for you.
About This Series
This article is from a series of Minimalist Menswear Collections. Feel free to check out the other guides in this series:
- Minimalist Men’s Shirt Collection
- Minimalist Men’s Pants Collection
- Minimalist Men’s Shoe Collection
How many pieces of outerwear do you really need? 10? 5? Maybe just 1 or 2?
Obviously, this depends on where you live. If you’re in southern California and don’t travel much, a couple of lightweight jackets might suffice.
On the other hand, if you live in New York City and travel frequently, you probably need a more substantial coat collection.
In this guide, we’ll try to determine the bare minimum number of outerwear pieces you really need to be covered (pun intended) for every season and occasion.
What do you really need?
Remember: minimalism is not a competition. It’s not about owning the fewest number of things. It’s about not owning things you don’t actually need.
So, in this case, we’re trying to whittle our outerwear collection down to the pieces that actually get worn regularly.
For the sake of this article, I’m going to assume that you:
- Experience winter, spring, summer and fall
- Travel 2-3 times per year
- Dress in business casual during the week
- Dress casually on weekends
In other words, you’re the typical 20-, 30-, 40- or 50-something middle-class man. At a minimum, I think you need the following outerwear:
- Lightweight jacket
- Medium weight jacket – casual
- Medium weight jacket – smart
- Heavy winter coat – casual
- Heavy winter coat – smart
Sure, you can supplement this collection with something like a raincoat, but if you’re really going for a minimalist wardrobe, I think the above list has you covered.
Let’s look at some options for each type of outerwear…
