How to choose a Teba jacket
In Baku the September evenings have already turned cool, yet the coat season is still some way off. In that gap a suit jacket often feels too formal and knitwear too plain. A wardrobe needs a third answer.
The Teba jacket is exactly that answer. It stands between a shirt and a jacket: light, soft, and never careless. It works for a business meeting and for a Saturday lunch alike.
What defines this model is not the number of pockets or buttons but its construction. A Teba has almost no stiffening inside, so everything about the way it looks comes from the pattern and the fit.
What a Teba jacket is
The Teba comes from Spain: it was first made in Andalusia as country and shooting dress, and only later moved into the city wardrobe. Its name remains from the title of one of the first men who ordered it.
In outline it is a short, straight-cut jacket: three or four buttons, patch pockets, and at the back either side vents or no vent at all.
The most visible difference is at the top. A Teba has no conventional jacket lapel — in its place sits a flat collar, close to a shirt collar. It can be buttoned all the way to the neck or left open.
The second difference is inside: there is no shoulder pad, and no full canvas across the chest. Together these two decisions define the whole character of the garment.
Collar and fastening
The flat collar is what sets the Teba apart from other jackets. A classic lapel rolls at the chest and creates volume there; the Teba collar lies flat, as a shirt collar does, and carries on the line of the body.
There are two ways to wear it and both are correct. With the top button open the collar shows a small triangle and the jacket reads as relaxed; buttoned to the top it covers the neck and becomes noticeably warmer on a windy evening.
Horn is the natural choice for the buttons: the tone is easy to match to the cloth, and the surface does not go dull with time. On a Teba the buttons are always in plain view, so their colour cannot be left to chance.
Construction: a shirt shoulder
The sleeve of a Teba is set into the shoulder as a shirt sleeve is: the sleeve head is soft, with nothing inside to lift it. The shoulder line therefore repeats the line of the body rather than rebuilding it.
The lining is either removed altogether or kept only across the back and in the sleeves. In the unlined version the inside work is on show: seam allowances have to be turned, edges finished cleanly, every transition pressed into place.
With no canvas and no shoulder pad, the only thing holding the jacket on the body is the pattern. In a classic jacket the inner layers absorb small discrepancies; here that margin simply does not exist.
This is why the lighter garment in fact asks for more careful fittings. The width of the back, the way the collar sits and the sleeve head show a difference of a few millimetres at once, so measuring matters here no less than it does for a classic jacket.
Cloth and weight
The Teba was thought out for autumn and early spring, and the choice of cloth follows those seasons: flannel, soft tweed, mid-weight wool. Linen and cotton blends are possible for the warm months, but the model's own season is cool weather.
Weight is measured in grams per running metre of cloth (g/m). For a Teba the range of roughly 300–400 g/m works well: at that weight the cloth holds its own shape without dragging the soft shoulder down.
Cloth that is too light sits like a sack in an unlined construction; cloth that is too heavy crushes the shoulder and takes the lightness out of the model. Weight here is a question of construction, not of taste.
The traditional colours are navy, grey, olive and brown. In the Drago, Reda and Zegna collections the flannel and soft-wool versions of those tones appear every season.
What to wear it with
The most natural pairing is flannel or wool trousers. Denim works too, provided the cloth is quieter and the colour darker.
Underneath, a shirt, fine knitwear or a roll-neck all work. A tie is superfluous here: the dress code of this garment is not formal but neatly casual.
For shoes, loafers, Chelsea boots and derbies in soft leather are the right answer. A heavy brogue argues with the lightness of a Teba.
With accessories a sense of proportion matters: the flat collar is already a detail in itself, so a pocket square is usually enough.
Measuring and ordering
A Teba gains from being cut to measure, because its whole effect lies in the fit: the neck, the width of the shoulder and the length of the body. A made-to-measure version is possible, as is one made entirely by hand; the difference lies in the amount of inside work.
At Atelier Baku 1984 a Teba jacket is cut after the measurements are taken and made up through fittings, and the making usually takes up to four weeks. The cloth and the shape of the collar are chosen at the first appointment — most of the remaining decisions follow from them.