The Goya

There is a jacket most men have never heard of, and a smaller number will recognise on sight and quietly judge you well for wearing. We call ours the Goya. The style is known as the Teba.

It began in Spain in the 1920s. King Alfonso XIII wore a soft, unstructured hunting jacket into the field, and his friend and fellow marksman, the Count of Teba, admired it. One of them gave it to the other, accounts differ, and it carried the Count's name from then on. Spain's tailors took it up, and for a century it has been what a well dressed Spaniard wears in place of a blazer.

Every detail was built for a long day outdoors. No padding, no canvas, so it moves with you. A collarless lapel that buttons to the throat when the wind turns. No vent, so the weather stays out. Cuffs that fasten closed for the same reason.

That is exactly why it works here and now. It has more presence than a bomber and less formality than a blazer, which is the gap in most Auckland wardrobes. In a fine wool it sits open over a t-shirt on a warm evening. In a heavier knit it does a coat's job through autumn without a coat's formality. It moves the way a knit does, which suits the occasion that calls for something more considered than a shirt but less rigid than tailoring.

If your jacket rotation is blazer heavy, this is the next purchase that actually adds something, a genuinely different shape rather than another version of what you already have. We call ours the Goya. If you know, you know. If you don't yet, come try one on.