Fat guy in a little coat: what Tommy Boy teaches about wearing someone else's jacket

If tailoring has a favourite film scene, it might be this one. In Tommy Boy (1995), Chris Farley’s Tommy borrows the jacket of David Spade’s Richard, puts it on over his own considerable frame, and sings a little song about being a fat guy in a little coat. Then he flexes, and the jacket tears cleanly in two down the back.

The bit started off screen. Farley used to pull on Spade’s jackets to annoy him while they were meant to be writing, and by Spade’s account it cost him a good few denim jackets before it ever reached the film. The joke is on the coat, not the man, and it is funny because it is true.

Why it splits down the back

A jacket has one long seam running straight down the middle of the back, and it sits directly over the widest, hardest-working part of your upper body.

When you move your arms forward, to reach, to hug, to shake a hand, your shoulder blades spread apart and your back gets wider. A jacket cut with enough room across the back lets that happen. A jacket cut too small has nowhere to give, so all the strain goes to the centre seam. On a good day the seam just pulls. On a Farley day, it lets go.

Five signs your jacket is too small

1. An X at the button. Creases pulling out from the fastened button towards your hips and chest.
2. Sleeves that climb. Reach forward and the sleeves ride halfway up your forearm.
3. The collar stands off your neck. A gap between the jacket collar and your shirt collar, especially at the back.
4. The vents flare. Standing still, the back vents open like curtains over your seat.
5. You can feel the back. If you are aware of the jacket across your shoulder blades when you reach for a door, it is working too hard.

How a suit should fit walks through the whole checklist.

The borrowed jacket problem

Weddings are where this happens in real life. A groomsman borrows a brother’s jacket, or a father’s, or wears the one he bought at twenty-two. It fastens, just, in the mirror at home. Then comes the first dance, the group hug and the photograph with his arms around two cousins.

Nothing tears. It just pulls, all day, in every photograph. A jacket cut for somebody else’s back will always fight yours. Coordinating groomsmen covers how to avoid a party full of borrowed shoulders.

Getting it right

A jacket is supposed to have room across the back. Not bagginess: room. That is one of the measurements taken at a first appointment, along with how you stand and how your shoulders sit, and it is why a jacket cut to you can be trim without being tight. If you are a bigger man who has spent years buying the next size up and living with the sleeves, big, tall and in-between is for you.

Sam measures and fits every client personally at the Vaughan studio. Book a time, and wear the jacket you suspect is too small. You will get a straight answer, and nobody will sing about it.

Where the story comes from: TV Guide on David Spade’s account of the bit.