A couple of weeks ago I picked up this blazer by Brando on yoox during a seasonal sale. I was looking for an inexpensive navy wool blazer, and this fit the bill well. The construction quality is decent, the fabric is very nice, and the details, although very much on the “unstructured everything” trend, worked for what I needed. The buttons, however, were terrible.
Brando is a diffusion line from a larger and more renowned Italian clothing company; they do seem to use good fabrics and the product is still made in Italy, but the decrease in quality from the mother company can definitely be seen in the hardware. This blazer came with plastic black buttons with iridescent blue spots – it was not a good look. I thoroughly enjoy high quality buttons, so I took this as an opportunity to make a strategic modification to the jacket.
Like I have done in the past, I headed over to Britex to pick out some new horn buttons. I took a page out of Jim Ockert‘s book (who’s love for contrasting buttons is well documented) and scooped up some tan horn buttons with brown speckles and stripes. I feel that the tan buttons looked great against the navy flannel, and made the jacket feel more like a blazer (without going to the extreme and using traditional brass buttons).
I replaced the buttons using the same procedure that I posted about last year, when I switched out the buttons on my trench coat. This was slightly more complex, though, since the cuff buttons are attached under the sleeve liner. Replacing these buttons requires a seam ripper and a sewing machine, and since I do not have these I had my tailor help me out on the sleeves. All told, the whole operation was $20 for buttons and $10 for the tailor – a small price to pay for a big change.
