A jacket is a garment for the upper body, usually extending below the hips. A jacket typically has sleeves and fastens in the front or slightly on the side. A jacket is generally lighter, tighter-fitting, and less insulating than a coat, which is outerwear. Some jackets are fashionable, while others serve as protective clothing. Jackets without sleeves are vests.
A man wearing a sports jacket.
British jacket, ca. 1600–1625, linen, silk, wool. Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Nylon bomber jacket, also in leather
A mess jacket
A coat is typically an outer garment for the upper body, worn by any gender for warmth or fashion. Coats typically have long sleeves and are open down the front, and closing by means of buttons, zippers, hook-and-loop fasteners, toggles, a belt, or a combination of some of these. Other possible features include collars, shoulder straps, and hoods.
Man wearing a coat, painting by Julian Fałat, 1900
Overcoat (left) and topcoat (right) from The Gazette of Fashion, 1872
Justacorps, a seventeenth- and eighteenth-century knee-length coat, fitted to the waist with flared skirts
Frock coat, a kneelength men's coat of the nineteenth century