The London Lounge

I am about to commission a double breasted suit jacket and was wondering if I should have a button hole on each lapel or only on the left hand side ? Your advise gentlemen would be much appreciated. Thank you.

Regards Snapper

Neither, perhaps.

Firstly, I think that even one (horizontal) hole will detract from the likely elegant diagonals of a peak lapel - especially if the cloth has any kind of a stripe to it.

Secondly, two holes would just emphasise any horizontals (shoulders, pockets, coat edge) and have a broadening effect - the last thing you want with a DB coat unless you have a very, very slender physique.

Unless you are in the regular habit of wearing something in it, I think that they look a bit messy. Maybe thats just me!

I think the London standard is one on each. I've had one only on the left occasionally, and it seems just a bit unbalanced to me. For maybe 2 seconds. There are bigger problems in the world.

snapper wrote:...was wondering if I should have a button hole on each lapel or only on the left hand side ?

From the practical point of view, a buttonhole on the right lapel of a DB jacket is superfluous unless you want to wear two boutonnieres If the idea is having 2 buttonholes just for balance, then wearing two boutonnieres follows.
But as Concordia says, it really doesn´t matter if you have one in each lapel. Nevertheless, I would advise against not having any. Although maybe only once or twice in a lifetime, a working buttonhole on the left side is -sooner or later- going to be needed. And I think that "unbalance" is a welcome one.

Concordia wrote:There are bigger problems in the world.

Dear Snapper,

I couldn't agree more with Concordia - and also support Hectorm about a second buttonhole being pure decoration.

I don't like decoration features on my suits. Button holes have a function where ever they are on my suits. All my coats, DB & SB have a working button on the left lapel and that's it.

Cheers, David

I've come across dozens of vintage DB coats from the 20's-40's with two buttonholes and some, less, with one. It's a well established tradition and nothing extravagant. In my opinion, the choice doesn't really involve symmetry (unless you also want two breast pockets) nor reduction of decoration. Working buttons on the cuffs, cuffs on overcoat's (not to mention jacket's) sleeves, turn ups, top button on a 3-roll-2 lapel, the top row of buttons on many DB coats; all decoration.

Frederic Leighton wrote: It's a well established tradition and nothing extravagant. In my opinion, the choice doesn't really involve symmetry (unless you also want two breast pockets) nor reduction of decoration.

Have you noticed ladies wearing right over left women-cut DB jackets? Like let´s say Marlene Dietrich, for instance, and not the Bianca Jagger´s male DB suits by Tommy Nutter.
Call me androcentric, but IMHO no buttonholes on the lapels look the best. And I could live with one on each side. But that single buttonhole on the right lapel (not to mention a pochette on that side) really throws me off.

hectorm wrote:Call me androcentric, but IMHO no buttonholes on the lapels look the best.

Here we go! For easy comparison.

EDIT: And this is why DB coats normally have two buttonholes. (Photo: Gabriel Fauré in 1918)

Thanks to the London Lounge, half of my suits are now DB and all of those have a button hole on both lapels. Never really thought about this very much but since the question has been raised, I prefer mine the way they are.

One side. The argument for symmetry doesn't seem to make much sense to me. If it did, we'd have breast pockets on both sides of a jacket.

loarbmhs wrote:One side. The argument for symmetry doesn't seem to make much sense to me. If it did, we'd have breast pockets on both sides of a jacket.

Yikes!

We'd all be looking like Bond villains then.

Frederic Leighton wrote:

hectorm wrote:Call me androcentric, but IMHO no buttonholes on the lapels look the best.

Here we go! For easy comparison.

Since I was referring to women in DB suits, for a moment I thought that the comparison was going to be between two pictures of Mrs. Dietrich -with and without buttonholes on her lapels- that you had found (not a tall order for someone of your resourcefulness regarding photographs, I'm sure).
Instead I found Mr. Jacomet and Mr. Hitchcock, and not looking particularly sharp on those boring suits. What a disappointment!

hectorm wrote:What a disappointment!

...Hectorm, you are right - less Jacomet, less Hitchcock and more Ann Forrest! (sorry, that's what women in my photo archive wear most of the times).

Well done Federico

Frederic Leighton wrote:... (sorry, that's what women in my photo archive wear most of the times).

No reason at all to apologize. If that is what the women in your portfolio wear, Federico, you are a true gentleman.