A Nice Finnish

Overcoat, that is! I've been wanting a nice 3/4 coat (a.k.a. stadium coat, car coat) for some time now. I had been thinking about purchasing a leather jacket like this for several months (or most of 2007 maybe). I even had one picked out from Remy Leather (model #8057 for spring/fall and #8257 with the fleece lining for the winter), but it costs $1,000 so I've been humming and hawing about it, without ever ordering the thing. I'm a little reluctant to order something like this over the net just in case it didn't fit quite right. And they're a little hard to find locally; not every store carries Remy leathers. I came close in San Jose earlier in April this year when I did find a store that had them. I even tried on a similar waistcoat, but they didn't have the black 3/4 coat in stock. The salesman was kind enough to inquire with the company and phoned me the next day but he said they wouldn't be able to get the coat shipped in overnight. I would have bought it if they could have. So for the time being I've been wearing that cheapo leather thing that I had on in New York. It only cost me $80 and it was ok to wear for a while, but I always considered it a temporary stop-gap measure. My brother suggested that if I wanted a nice jacket I should look for one in Europe since they have a better sense of style. I have to agree; I like the look of the clothes I see when I visit European cities. (Mind you, my basis for comparison is severly limited as I don't live in a big city, so it may be the case that New Yorkers are equally well dressed but it seems like I've been touring European cities more often than American ones lately.)

So while in Helsinki, on my only day off for sightseeing/shopping, I went around to different men's shops in three malls. Eventually I found a coat I liked at Stockmann's, the one you see me wearing. It looks and feels a bit like suede, but it isn't. I thought it was some magical new fabric, but the label says it's plain old polyester. Yet it feels like suede, go figure. It's also fairly warm, kept me warm in Helsinki, so should certainly be good here over the winter months. It's long such that I can wear my blazers underneath (which was the whole point), as you see in the pic—I've just returned from graduation where I hooded my PhD student. It has a double collar that I've always liked, and best of all, it has seven pockets. Six seems to be a minimum for me: I need four outside pockets and at least two inside. The coat is from Oratop, a Finnish company, which makes this coat something of a nice and hopefully long-lasting souvenir of my trip to Finland. Kiitos! (Thank you in Finnish.)