My goal in this day of dress-down travel, was to find a practical travel jacket that could double as a weatherproof sport coat. One jacket that would instantly dispense with the debate over what to wear, and what to carry. A jacket that could be worn just as easily on a trans-Atlantic flight as on a misty country lane — and still comfortably pass muster in an elegant restaurant or hotel. A travel jacket that would always be correct, weather or not. 

Unimpressive offerings
The search yielded a number of safari-style jackets with fussy leather trim, belts, and epaulets, as well as other well-intentioned attempts — often called “journalist jackets”— that tried

   to pass for what my intrepid correspondent colleagues would wear in Peshawar or Nairobi.

But none were constructed with much care and most seemed to be made for tiny little bodies that had never swung a bat or tasted foie gras. The materials were generally of questionable quality, and although these mail-order jackets advertised plenty of top-secret, security compartments, few of those pockets proved deep or wide enough to carry a map, slim guide book, or other travel necessities like a small camera.
With such uninspired offerings, the only recourse was to start from scratch with a custom-made jacket.