A polo coat is usually camel hair or a fine wool in the same tawny colour, double-breasted, with a belt cut from the same cloth. It came out of American collegiate dressing in the 1920s and was picked up by most of the best-dressed men of the following forty years, and it has never really been improved on. It looks more assured than anything else you can put over a suit. We make them in genuine camel hair and in camel-coloured fine wool for customers who want a coat that is obviously, unarguably good.
What makes it a polo coat
Three things. The double-breasted front, the self-belt that ties or buckles at the waist, and the camel or near-camel colour. Put them together and you get a coat that is relaxed and extremely distinctive at the same time. Formal enough for the theatre, easy enough for a walk on a Sunday, and distinctive enough that you should be prepared for people to comment on it.
Camel hair is the traditional cloth, and true camel hair is not the same thing as a wool dyed camel colour. It comes from the soft underhair of the Bactrian camel, it is naturally light, remarkably warm for its weight, and has a handle nothing else quite matches. A polo coat in genuine camel hair from a heritage British or Italian mill is one of the best pieces of outerwear money can buy, and one of the few coats that will outlive the person who ordered it.